Carnegie Longlist, one month in.

The long list was announced on the 5th November, see my post for the whole list as well as which I had already read.  As I did last year, I'd like to read all of them before the shortlist is announced, so here's an update on my progress...I've not only been reading Carnegie books but I only mention those listed here (check my mini-reviews on Twitter or find me on Goodreads to see what else I've read).  They've all been good but not amazing:

The No.1 Car Spotter and the Firebird by Atinuke - really nice but not enough for Carnegie

Jasmine Skies by Sita Brahmachari - found the story dull but enjoyed the descriptions of India

Dead Time by Anne Cassidy - pretty good but tried to fit too much in

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle - lovely tale but not quite Carnegie worthy

The Things We Did For Love by Natasha Farrant - very moving story of life in occupied France, again just not quite literary enough
Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes - can see this being made into a film, a really good book that could well end up on the official short list...it just won't be on mine!
Hitler's Angel by William Osborne - too predictable but with some excellent moments
Goblins by Philip Reeve - very funny
The Sleeping Army by Francesca Simon - didn't grip me but isn't terrible

Except for one that that is so brilliant that it has to replace one of my initial personal shortlist:

VIII by H.M. Castor

I'm not sure it is a winner though, and I won't tell you which it replaced - you'll have to wait until March for my final list!

 

Is it just the ones I happen to have picked up so far, or are there are heck of a lot of war books on the list?  I really need to read something to cheer me up but have nothing with a happy blurb on my TBR pile!

#cpd23 fail!

Avid readers (all one of you) may have noticed that my CPD23 posts ended at Thing 16 quite some time ago.  We have until November 30th to finish and get a certificate and I keep thinking I really must do it, but I'm sitting here procrastinating, avoiding doing actual essential YLG things, and have realised it aint gonna happen.  If they re-run it next year I will make a concerted effort to finish the final leg!

The Carnegie 2013 Longlist!

Wow, a list of nearly 70 books this time!  Don’t forget, each of these books is long-listed purely because at least one librarian in the UK liked it, it just has to have been released in the UK between 1^st September 2011 (a long time ago now!) and 31^st August 2012 and they will not all meet the judging criteria even if they are entertaining reads.  As I did last year, I intend to read the whole longlist before the short list is announced on 19^th March 2013.  There were only 52 last year and I had read 22 before the list was announced.  This year I’ve read 25 so far, and actually haven’t heard of a few of the longlist so I look forward to finding out about them!  Man alive, I’ve got a lot of reading to do…

Goldilocks on CCTV by John Agard (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond (Puffin Books)
Soldier Dog by Sam Angus (Macmillan Children's Books)
The No. 1 Car Spotter and the Firebird by Atinuke (Walker Books)
The Traitors by Tom Becker (Scholastic)
The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne (Doubleday Children's Books)
Jasmine Skies by Sita Brahmachari (Macmillan Children's Books)
Spy For The Queen of Scots by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday Children's Books)
Naked by Kevin Brooks (Puffin Books)
Kill All Enemies by Melvin Burgess (Puffin Books)
Dead Time by Anne Cassidy (Bloomsbury)
VIII by H.M. Castor (Templar Publishing)
Dying To Know You by Aidan Chambers (Bodley Head)
The Broken Road by B.R. Collins (Bloomsbury)
The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Walker Books)
15 Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins (Oxford University Press)After the Snow by S.D. Crockett (Macmillan Children's Books)
The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury)
Scramasax by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Quercus Publishing)
Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson (Oxford University Press)
Sektion 20 by Paul Dowswell (Bloomsbury)
A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle (Marion Lloyd Books)
Saving Daisy by Phil Earle (Puffin Books)
Buzzing! by Anneliese Emmans Dean (Brambleby Books)
The Things We Did For Love by Natasha Farrant (Faber and Faber)
Trouble in Toadpool by Anne Fine (Doubleday Children's Books)
Call Down Thunder by Daniel Finn (Macmillan Children's Books)
Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher (Hodder Children's Books)
The Double Shadow by Sally Gardner (Indigo)
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner (Hot Key Books)
After by Morris Gleitzman (Puffin Books)
To Be A Cat by Matt Haig (Bodley Head)
A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children's Books)
Unrest by Michelle Harrison (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Doubleday Children's Books)
The Seeing by Diana Hendry (Bodley Head)
Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan (Walker Books)
Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes (Walker Books)
The Abominables by Eva Ibbotson (Marion Lloyd Books)
The Girl in the Mask by Marie-Louise Jensen (Oxford University Press)
The Prince Who Walked With Lions by Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan Children's Books)
In Darkness by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (David Fickling Books)
Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer by Derek Landy (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Itch by Simon Mayo (Corgi Children's Books)
At Yellow Lake by Jane McLoughlin (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy (Andersen Press)
The Treasure House by Linda Newbery (Orion Children's Books)
All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls (Marion Lloyd Books)
This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel (Random House David Fickling Books)
Hitler's Angels by William Osborne (Chicken House)
Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Bodley Head)
Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver (Puffin Books)
Burn Mark by Laura Powell (Bloomsbury)
Black Arts: The Books of Pandemonium by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil (David Fickling Books)
Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley (Bloomsbury)
This is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees (Bloomsbury)
Goblins by Philip Reeve (Marion Lloyd Books)
Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid (Puffin Books)
Pendragon Legacy: Sword of Light by Katherine Roberts (Templar Publishing)
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (Indigo)
A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton (David Fickling Books)
The Sleeping Army by Francesca Simon (Profile Books)
The Flask by Nicky Singer (HarperCollins Children's Books)
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
A Skull in Shadows Lane by Robert Swindells (Corgi Children's Books)
A Waste of Good Paper by Sean Taylor (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Electric Monkey)

Of the ones I have read so far I haven’t disliked any, but some are definitely better than others.  Very disappointed to see that Heart Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne wasn't eligible because it was published for adults before on a YA list (keep that in mind publishers).  Considering the judging criteria, and the fact that the shortlist is only 6-8 books, the red ones are my shortlist so far…I can't predict a winner with as much confidence as I did last year...my top 8 will change as I read more!

Our Dress Up Day!

I wrote about Literacy Week Day 5 on Saturday but had left my camera at school.  Here are some of the promised pictures, selected so as to not ruin any reputations...

Batgirl forgot to change into
her day-wear!

This needs no caption...

He kept the mask on all day! 

House Coloured Oompa Loompas

Batman popped in to help

Some of my lovely staff!

Sue picked our winner, my favourite,
but never fear, Batgirl caught him later...

Arch enemies meet in the library!

Literacy Week Day 5

The grand finale of literacy week was a character dress up day to raise money for Pelican Post ...or it will be for them if I can get in touch with them!  Some people made a brilliant effort, but of course I stupidly left the camera at school and so can't show you any until Monday!  Multicoloured Oompa Loompas popping up everywhere, Tinkerbell telling her story at break in the playground, Batgirl and Batman dishing out justice across the school, French classes writing about the characters they were dressed as (in French, obv), Winnie the Pooh was spotted hard at work, and three  life size Wallys turned up!  Kids were finding them as well as the original Wally, who is now relaxing on my sofa after a good week trekking around the school

Our final guest was Sue Ransom, author of the Small Blue Thing trilogy.

She came to talk to our remaining Year 9s, about writing, being published, and inspirations.  Even boys that can't sit still in a normal lesson asked questions and were interested in the answers.  After school was pretty hectic as we had the favourite costumes from each House, as well as lots of staff in their amazing outfits, in the library so that Sue could pick the fave...I'm not going to tell you who the character was because I want to share a picture with you on Monday...and then as it settled down in there a few stayed to have a chat with her about writing.

Overall I think we can say the week was a success!  Loyalty cards are being waved in the library, pupils that rarely come in have been begging me to borrow books by our guests, one of the year 10 boys that really struggles with reading is going to read Soul Beach with me a few chapters a day because he was so intrigued by the sound of it, some others (including a member of staff!) have been inspired to write their own stories, finished copies of the poems written with Neal Zetter on Monday are appearing on my desk, everyone is going to really miss the literary lunches (not that I had time to eat any of them...) and teachers have really enjoyed adding literacy activities to their normal lessons.  On Monday I shall draw a raffle for all the pupils that took part in the mini-challenges for a range of signed books, sweets and other literary related goodies that I've been squirrelling away.

Literacy Week Day 4

Take a look at days 1, 2 & 3 (I can't be bothered linking to them again, they're easy to find!) for what's been happening so far.

Again, little library things, literacy starter activities, story time around the school at break, and then today's wonderful guest Kate Harrison, the author of numerous grown up books who has recently added Young Adult fiction to her repertoire with the first two books of the Soul Beach trilogy out now...

She spent half of lunch break chatting with one of my pupil assistants at the desk about what he's reading, and then talked to a group of Year 10s about social networking and the inspiration of tribute sites to her books, as well as her experience of undercover work for the BBC (I heard a boy whispering at that point "she was a spy!").  She had a really tough group of kids - a lot of them were boys that I rarely see in the library - but they sat in awe and asked some great questions, giving a lovely round of applause at the end.  After school, as James and Moira did, she stayed in the library chatting with a small group of my regulars and they really enjoyed the chance for a more intimate conversation.  AND I remembered to take a picture and bring it home, hooray!

After I waved goodbye to Kate I had to get the library ready for our literacy evening.  HoI organised it and invited parents to listen to me, her, 2nd in Inclusion and an English teacher talk about reading/writing/speaking and listening.  We had 16 come, which for our school is pretty amazing, and they were really engaged with the activities we came up with.  I talked about Accelerated Reader, reading for pleasure, and how to find things in a library (we played Dewey Bingo).

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of literacy week!  Our last author!  Wally finding his last hiding place!  Last chance for teachers to tell kids about the books that inspired them!  And it is a dress up day!  Soooo excited, and teachers have been really excited about planning their costumes and pupils have been talking about it all week...I've told them that if they want to come in jeans and a t-shirt that is fine but they have to tell me a character from a book or film that wears jeans and a t-shirt...pictures tomorrow, though we're going to the pub after school so you might have to wait until Saturday to find out how it goes, ha!

 

Literacy Week Day 3

Have a look at Day 1 and Day 2 before you read this...

Day 3 of Literacy week, yaaay!  I had a complaint this morning from one of the teachers...having read my blog, he told me off for saying teachers are only going along with the week because HoI is telling them to.  He said they're doing it because everything we've suggested is fun!  So I apologise, I know it is true, we've got a great staff team and there is always a good proportion of them that will volunteer for anything I ask them to do...it is the case though that it has been quicker and easier to get things approved - I or HoI (or our 2nd in Inclusion, who has also helped with a lot of the preparation) have an idea, we like it, so HoI says she'll tell the Head we're doing it!  If I'd planned it alone I think it would be far more low key, for example I wouldn't dream of suggesting having an author a day and taking over that many lessons in close succession.

So we had the usual little challenges, teachers telling pupils about books that inspired them, Wally was hiding somewhere else and there was a special French story time at break and lunch in the library as it was European Day of Languages today.  Then after lunch our special guest was the wonderful Moira Young, coming to see some familiar faces as she visited us back in March to promote Blood Red Road.  The sequel came out in August, Rebel Heart, while I was warming the kids up (Moira got stuck in traffic on the way in) they laughed at me for being far too excited...but in a nice way, I think...

It felt a much more personal affair this time, talking about what inspired the landscapes in her books, and then after school a small group stayed behind to ask more questions - including a year 11 boy who had not borrowed a single book from the library until he met Moira in March and read her book and now reads a couple of books a week - and I took some pictures that I could have included here but I left the camera at school <sigh>

One of the brilliant ideas HoI had was getting our Canteen Manager in to her office to discuss a literary menu for the week.  Between the three of us we came up with some [slightly tenuous] links to meals that our kids would actually agree to eat! I made up some sheets of stickers with a picture of Oliver Jeffers's Book Eating Boy and each time a pupil chose the 'Literary Lunch' for the day they gave them a sticker to show me to swap for raffle tickets and House Points.

 

What more could I possibly have to share with you tomorrow?...