Literacy Week Day 2

Check out my post about day 1 here.

So the rest of this week will be less frantic for me as my mini-Where's Wally wasn't hiding in the library, the lovely ladies at reception were looking after him today and he'll be somewhere else tomorrow, and we only have visitors in the afternoon.  Saying that, I have a lot to catch up on that I've ignored while planning this week, and I do have to stay late on Thursday to talk at a parents' literacy evening, then Friday I'll be running around taking pictures of costumes...but today...

Before school and at break I had pupils doing my wordsearches/code breakers for the day (different mini-challenges every day) as well as the usual stuff.  I had a pretty stressful break because a Head of House has hidden golden tickets around the school and the kids are pestering me to find out where they are (I don't know, honest, but they won't believe me and so get stroppy!) but it was nice to see a few loyalty cards being stamped at the desk as books were borrowed and lots came and thanked me for the books.  One of the teachers came in to tell me that his group were opening the goody bags yesterday they were really excited and thought the books were awesome!  There was a lovely peaceful corner during break where one of our English teachers was reading a Carribean tale to an engrossed cross section of pupils.  I have three teachers reading stories at break each day this week, one in the library and the other two elsewhere in the school, and they're getting pretty good crowds from all year groups!

Our star guest for the day today was the lovely James Dawson, author of Hollow Pike.  I stupidly didn't take any pictures of him without my pupils in so can't share them on here...I shall remember to do better the rest of this week!  They loved him!  He came into the library during lunch break and a few of my regulars got a bit star struck, most of them would just look at him from a distance...then he held a crowd of 60 rowdy year 10s in the palm of his hand for an hour.  I'd warned him they take a while to settle down but they're generally not awful, but I was so impressed by how taken they were with him - when he read a few pages of Hollow Pike you could hear a pin drop and they asked some great questions.  The round of applause he got at the end sounded like it was 600 pupils not 60!  A few of them, along with some pupils that hadn't been in that lesson, came to the library after school to talk to him a bit more and he was brilliant with them.

We also had support from the lovely Tales on Moon Lane for a small book shop in the library after school, selling James's book along with a nice current selection of fiction, including, of course, those by the coming authors.  They've left me the books so that I can sell them at the other events during the week, even trusted me with their cash box...now locked away in a safe place and hovering in a paranoid corner of my mind for the rest of the week!

Tune in tomorrow for more exciting literacy happenings!  I'll have a bit more time so I might show you my literary menus