Guardian Young Reporters

Four EGA students spent an enjoyable, informative day at The Guardian in preparation for their role as Cultural creators for the 2012 Pop Up Festival. They created a newspaper page advertising the authors and the events, which are happening at the festival on the 30th June and 1st July. Students at EGA have been reading books and attending worskops with Sita Brahmachari, Cat Clarke,Gillian Cross,Candy Gourlay, Miriam Halahmy, Catherine Johnson, Sally Nicholls, Meg Rosoff, Marcus Sedgwick, Nicky Singer and Ali Sparkes. 

ISLINGTON TEEN VOTE AT WATERSTONES

Last night I went along to the Islington Teen vote awards at Waterstones Islington, organised by Islington Libraries. Over the past year Islington teenagers have been voting for a book which they read in 2011 which changed their life. Four teenage authors were invited along to read from their work and discuss books which have influenced them. The audience consisted of local authors,(Malaika Rose Stanley), public librarians (Geoff, Tony, Pamela and Rosemary) writing students and a group of girls from Mount Carmel with theirSchool Librarian, plus members of the general public. 

From left: Candy Gourlay, Sara Grant, Sophie McKenzie and Katie Dale

 

The authors present were Candy Gourlay (Tall Story), Sara Grant (Dark Parties) Sophie McKenzie (Girl, Missing and many more), Katie Dale (Someone else’s life). Each of the authors read an excerpt from their books. Katie, Sara and Sophie all opted to read the first chapter of their books. Without exception, they were all dramatic and exciting. There was an audible gasp at the end of Katie’s reading, where a girl discovers that her birth mother is not the woman she thought. Sophie read an excerpt from ‘Child, missing’ where a young girl has lost her sister and the chapter also comes to a dramatic conclusion. Sara’s book was different, set in a dystopian world where everybody looks the same; once again the reading was captivating. Candy (despite her stressful journey on the ‘slowest bus on Holloway Road’) read a chapter from later in her book, where her eight foot basketball player character arrives in Britain for the first time. Candy’s great sense of humour was apparent from both her reading and conversation.

After the readings the panel were asked which books had most influenced them recently. Answers included Rebecca, The Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Five Chinese Brothers. I particularly liked Sophie’s list of thirteen of her favourite books, one of which was selected at random by the girl who asked the question, as she acknowledged what a difficult question that is to answer; selecting one book out of all those wonderful books out there. Questions were then invited from the audience and the panel were asked how long it took to write a novel – four months (much to Candy’s disgust) to six years – did they imagine their books being turned into films (Sara said it would be difficult, given that all the characters look the same). They were also asked about censoring their writing for a teenage audience.
Geoff James from Islington Libraries then presented the winning students with ITunes vouchers and the authors signed copies of their books. The most popular book voted for was The Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney*  It was a very enjoyable evening and I could have listened to the authors talking for a lot longer.

* The Wimpy Kid books occupy places 3 4 5 and 7 in EGA's top ten most borrowed books since September 2011

Cinderella Shoes

These fabulous shoes have been in the school lost property for some time now. (How could you lose them?!!) I am hoping there will be a character in our Carnegie book choice this year who will need to wear them...!

The new Library progresses...

The new LRC is rapidly taking shape - it's the top floor in the pictures. We only have six weeks left in the present LRC before we camp out in a classroom until November 5th when the new school opens.

Design your own book cover Competition

This Valentine's Day inspired competition proved popular; here are some of our favourite entries.

By Diem 10E

By Epaphrodite 7H

By Zahra 7H

By Reem 11T

Guardian Open Weekend

This weekend I took two fourteen year old students from EGA, Khadra and Mahmuda to the Guardian Open Weekend. The youth events that we had tickets for all took place in The Hub, Kings Cross. What a lovely space it was - an old looking building with a contemporary feel. The first seminar we went to was run by Sara Shamsavari, artist: How to make a photograph tell a story, where we looked at basic photography techniques and discussed a selection of photographs. Next we visited Candy Gourlay, author of Tall Story where she videoed the girls talking about their favourite books.

In her own words:

'Yesterday I spent the day filming children at the Guardian's first Open Weekend which was like the Hay Festival except in the middle of King's Cross. I loved meeting young people and finding out what they loved to read. (These photos are just screenshots from the videos) I also asked them what advice they would give someone who finds it hard to read. Brilliant answers! I'm hoping to interview more children, I just need to finish writing my novel then I'll be looking for more filming opportunities. The film will be screened at the Pop Up Festival on June 30.'

                           PS And here is a bird that Khadra painted in the watercolour workshop

http://on.fb.me/GNLLEF

Here is my photograph of Khadra being filmed by Candy (using techniques learnt...!)

On Sunday we visited the Book Barge - a kind of floating book shop where the girls were impressed with the childrens selection.

Then it was back to the Hub for two sessions with Meg Rosoff. The first was on her latest book 'There is no dog' where God is a teenage boy called Bob. Meg discussed starting writing and finding the voice which makes each of us individual and the experiences that shape us. The audience ranged from about eight to adult and was very enjoyable. Then there was a short break, where I spoke to Meg and we talked about her visiting EGA and she signed the EGA library copy of 'There is no dog.'  

Creative writing with Meg Rosoff was the next session, once again catering to all ages. She got us thinking about ourselves and the experiences and emotions we could bring to writing, gave us some questions to answer and we discussed them as a group. Mahmuda commented afterwards that she wished it had lasted for another hour!    

  

                       

We had a quick look around the Guardian Offices at Kings Place but it was very crowded - the best bit was The Three Pigs display in the foyer, based on the making of the TV advert!                         

The new LRC takes shape!

I went on another site tour this week - I couldn't wait to see what the new LRC looked like. 'A building site' my husband commented, but I can get a much better idea of what it will look like. The view over the London

skyline is fabulous!