Reading Newsletters

If I Were a Book Competition Results!

19th July 2019

We were absolutely delighted to have so many entries of such a high quality celebrating the joy and magic of books! Having judged the competition, our Patron of Reading & Illustration, Sarah McIntyre, has sent us a film of her response to the entries. She has also created the most beautiful If I Were a Book book for us, which we will certainly treasure! 

Huge congratulations to our Winners and 'Honourable Mentions', whose entries are shown in the slideshow below. We will also be creating a display in school to showcase the children's entries and the If I Were a Book book that Sarah has so kindly created for us. 

Early Years:
Winner: Anya

'Beautiful colour palette and I like how Anya has used the form of the book in her picture, this time as a butterfly!'
Honourable Mention: Hazel 

Year 1:

Winner: Maxim
'Maxim did a great job turning a book into a fierce dragon character. Love the sharp teeth!

Honourable Mention: Brooke

Year 2:

Winner: Emily

'Emily has created a wonderfully complex drawing that draws me in and makes me want to figure out what all the pictures and symbols in the different narrative strands might mean.'

Honourable Mention: Eddie

Year 3:

Winner: Ava M
'Ava's entry looks bold and snappy! I love how she's used paper engineering to create a snapping creature that's also reminscent of how a book is made.'
Honourable Mention: Connie

Year 4:

Winner: Anna
'Anna's put a lot of careful craftmanship into this image, creating a lovely 3D effect and even including a fabric bookmark!'

Honourable Mention: Ruby

Year 5:
Winners: Abigail & Chay

'Abigail's done some incredible world-building in this picture. There's a whole exciting land of adventure on the page. I particularly like her focus on details that aren't even mentioned in her writing about the mountains and volcanoes, such as the beautifully drawn pen of sheep at the base of the mountains, or the dove perched on the roof of the house. Nice sense of depth, too, with the layers of mountains that drew my eye in.'

'Chay's picture is beautiful for its simplicity. I immediately fell in love with his weepy little tree-headed character surrounded by things that will cheer him up. He's also created some beautiful lettering. I love the way the letters work well on the page with the picture. This overall image would make a great t-shirt design.'

Honourable Mention: Nathan

Year 6:

Winner: Holli

'I love the solid, chunky way Holli has drawn the objects scattered around the bedroom, and how she's given thought to each detail even when they're not the focus of the text. The dream thought bubble she created really looks like a window into an exciting forested world of adventure.'

Honourable Mention: Luca

'I showed this one to Philip [Reeve] and we both LOVE the reader urging Cliff not to give up!' 

If I Were a Book Competition!
5th July 2019

During Collective Worship this week, our theme has been 'Love'. We have explored what it means to love books, where this love for books grows from and how we can grow this love further by sharing it with others. 

We shared the wonderful If I Were a Book as a whole school, discussing what we noticed about the words and illustrations and how each page represents the joy of reading. The children were captivated by how each illustration incorporates a book and our older children dived deeper into the visual metaphors. 

We are inviting the children to enter a competition to design their own page to represent what reading means to them. It should include a sentence beginning with 'If I were a book ...' and an illustration to represent this, like each of the pages in If I Were a Book. A film of the book being read has been uploaded below for you to watch and discuss with your children and hopefully help get creative juices flowing!

For children in Early Years and Key Stage 1, this might take the form of an idea like 'If I were a book, I take my reader on a journey to ...'. Children in Key Stage 2 might like to challenge themselves to come up with their own metaphor, like we discussed in Collective Worship. The winner from each class will be able to choose a book by the wonderful Sarah McIntyre, our Patron of Reading, who will sign them dedicated to the winners. Thank you to Sarah for her continued support.