CARNEGIE SHADOWING

Last week the EGA Reading Group took part in the Islington Carnegie Shadowing ceremony, held at Mount Carmel School.  Every year, groups all over the country read the books that are shortlisted for The Carnegie Award, and vote for their favourite. In Islington, each school puts on a performance related to the books.

The winning book in Islington this year was The Bunker Diaries by Kevin Brooks. The EGA group put on a presentation set in a bunker, with characters from each of the books arriving in the bunker.

Abigail  and Marjana , 10L wrote a short piece for the year seven members to perform, which was based on The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson. This is a picture book, which was nominated for the Kate Greenaway award.

The event was very enjoyable and the winning books were ‘The Bunker Diary’ by Kevin Brooks, for the Carnegie award, and ‘This is Not my Hat’ by Jon Klassen.

Becoming a writer: Katie Dale

Katie Dale was the latest author to visit EGA for Becoming a Writer, where she talked about her writing experience, which ranges from writing books for younger children, Fairy Tales with a Twist, through to Young Adult Books Someone Else’s Life and Little White Lies. Katie is also a trained actress, which made her readings all the more enjoyable, and there was a lot of discussion around the intricacies of the plot of Someone Else’s Life, which several of the students had read but had many questions they wanted answers to. She also talked about t various covers of her books which have been translated into several languages.

This was the last of our author visits for this year, the series will recommence with Sara Grant in September.

MINTY - Book Review by Sheepa Ahmed

Fourteen-year-old twins Minty and Jess are inseparable. Maybe they bicker now and then, even crave a bit of space once in a while. But they have a connection. Unbreakable. Steadfast. Nothing can tear them apart. Until a family trip to the coast puts their bond in jeopardy. As Minty tries to rescue her dog from drowning she ends up fighting for her life. Will Minty survive? If she doesn’t, how will Jess cope without her? Only the stormy sea has the answer.
Minty is a story of love, loss and coming to terms with consequences. It’s a spiritual tale that will linger in your mind long after you’ve read the final word.

 

 

Sheepa's review

 

'Christina Banach had me trapped in Minty's heart breaking world packed with emotion. This beautiful tale of two sisters made me aware of death and how important living in the present is. Minty died trying to save her dog but in return she had to leave her sister, and herself trapped between two worlds.

Minty has to go through the pain of watching her family go through the grief of loosing her. Christina's stunning style of writing succeeded in bringing tears of joy and sadness to my eyes. For a first book being this good, it makes me wonder what is yet to come.'

Sheepa and Julakha - big fans of Minty!

BECOMING A WRITER WITH MIRIAM HALAHMY

 

On Tuesday April 29^th, Miriam Halahmy visited EGA to talk about ‘Becoming a Writer’ as part of our ongoing programme of talks. Miriam is the author of several books,  ranging from collections of poetry to her recent series of three books set on Hayling Island, Hidden Illegal and Stuffed. She talked about the inspiration for her novels, and read excerpts from Hidden and Stuffed, as well as getting two keen students, Lia and Mia to act out a piece from Hidden which she had rewritten as a play script. She ended her talk with her top five tips for writers.

The event was extremely enjoyable, and Miriam will be meeting more students from EGA in June, as Stuffed is being read as part of this year’s Pop -Up festival.

Islington Teen Read Award

HER SISTER'S VOICE wins award!

 

 

 

 

After three months of voting the results were in and Her Sister's Voice was the most voted for book by Islington students. The author (me!) was presented with a certificate by the Mayor of Islington, at Waterstones bookshop. A panel of authors including Dave Cousins, Keren David, Lesley Cheetham and Sara Grant read from their books and answered questions from students.

Students from ColaI school

With the Mayor, Dave Cousins, Keren David and Sara Grant

ISLINGTON TEEN READ TOP SIX: EGA RESULTS

EGA'S TOP SIX!

1. Her Sister's Voice - Lesley Cheetham
2. The Third Wheel - Jeff Kinney
3. The Demon Dentist - David Walliams
4. Wonder - AJ Palacio
5. Genius Ideas - Liz Pinchon
6. Fear - Michael Grant

Emil and the detectives - from book to stage

Since January the Bookaholics have been reading Emil and the detectives by Erich Kastner, a classic children's book writttn in German in 1931. Despite the old fashioned nature of the tale (children roaming the streets of Berlin at night) we enjoyed the book and on Saturday went to see the stage production at the Olivier theatre. The students enjoyed the production, although changes to the story in the second half were not thought to be beneficial.

Last week Keren David was our invited author to talk about ‘Becoming a Writer.’ Keren is the author of several YA books, the ‘When I was Joe’ trilogy, Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery, and her latest novel Salvage.

Keren talked about her writing history, from writing stories about her friends at school, to becoming a journalist at the Independent newspaper. After living for eight years in Amsterdam, she turned to fiction writing, and on returning to London enrolled in writing for children course at City University.

Keren showed us some of her notebooks for the book she is currently writing, a romance set in Amsterdam. The girls had lots of questions for Keren and it was a very informative and enjoyable session.

 Dave Cousins visited EGA in  February

to participate in ‘Becoming a Writer’ and what a treat it was! Dave gave a very entertaining talk about his journey to becoming a writer – trying out vaious options along the way, such as being Superman, a song writer, pop star and a graphic designer. (Yusra, 9L asked him whether he had ever considered becoming a stand-up comedian as he made us laugh so much!)

Dave’s talk showed how his persistence and determination to write eventually paid off. He got up at five every morning to write in a freezing cold attic before going to work, and did this for seven years until he won a writing competition, which led to his book being published.

He then talked about his second novel, Waiting for Gonzo, before answering questions and playing us his video ‘Attack of the cigarette UFO’ which is a spin off from the book along with a soundtrack composed by Dave and his old band.

ISLINGTON TEEN READ VOTE ROUND 1

 Schools have just finished the first round of voting and these are the results at EGA:

EGA’S Top Ten round 1 result

1. Lesley Cheetham - Her Sister’s Voice
2. Teri Terry - Slated
3. Cat Clarke - Undone
4. David Walliams -  Demon Dentist
5. RJ Palacio - Wonder
6. CJ Daugherty - Night School
7. Sarah Alderson - Hunting Lila
8. Anne Cassidy - Dead Time
9. Veronica Roth – Divergent
10. Moira Young – Blood Red Road

ISLINGTON TEEN READ 2014

Every Islington school has nominated twenty books, based on the most popular issues of 2012/13 (only books published within that time frame) Here are our Top 20.

BECOMING A WRITER 2014

 

What a fabulous lineup we have in store for this year!

BECOMING AN ILLUSTRATOR with Sarah Gill

This week we held our first becoming an illustrator event in The Cloud, with Sarah Gill, illustrator of several books, including The Rainy Day' and 'The Best Jumper.'

Sarah talked through the process of working on a picture book. She used her book 'The Rainy Day' which was published by Usborne and showed us some examples of the work in progress.



Here Sarah showed us how to make a mini book with the required 12 page picture book layout, provided  some text and a storyboard to fill in with our own drawings

 Students asked lots of questions before embarking on creating their own picture books.

Staff and students alike enjoyed the workshop!

BECOMING A WRITER with Nicola Morgan

 

At the end of last term we held our fourth ‘Becoming a Writer’ event, with award winning author Nicola Morgan. Nicola is the author of several novels and has also published two non-fiction books, ‘Write to be published’ and ‘Blame my brain: the amazing teenage brain revealed.’Nicola talked to the group about her experience as a writer and why people write, then talked about her novel ‘Mondays are red.’ She then did some exercises with the girls, looking at the relationship between colour and sound. The girls came up with their own piece of writing and then a general question and answer session rounded off the session.
Nicola very kindly donated copies of two of her books to the school library, plus a bag and some tea towels!

The next author in the series will be Dave Cousins, on February 4th 2014. Look out for ‘Becoming an Illustrator’ with Sarah Gill on January 20th 2014.