Tag: Reading

Happy Holidays!

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I Opened a Book
By Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode.
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

Piers Torday inspires with stories and powerful messages

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Imagine somebody came and asked you to get three different groups of students at the age of 6-12 years to reflect on the magic of stories, the power of reading, animal protection and have them enjoy it all the while. Would you have any idea how to do that? Well, Piers Torday definitely did when he came to meet our students on 08 May 2019.

During the almost 90 minute sessions Piers Torday easily connected and never lost touch with his audience. In his very own and entertaining way he told the students about his first contact with books (when crawling through his mother’s book shop), his experiences with stories and how the magic of “black marks on white paper turning into a different movie for everyone is a magic no science has managed to explain”. From his personal experiences with being read to and with stories in general he moved on to the story of him becoming a writer and an author. Furthermore, he pointed out the “state of the art idea generator” every one of us has and how he got to develop his idea for “The last wild”.  Our students also got to know that even Roald Dahl rewrote his famous story of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” so that in future there should not be any reason of worrying about not getting a story right at the very first try.

Everyone present clearly enjoyed listening to Piers Torday and the very next day there was not only a significantly higher demand for Roald Dahl books in the library but also for those written by Piers Torday.

Who knows, maybe there will be a day when an author will be standing in front of students talking about how Piers Torday  inspired her/him back in the days of May 2019 …

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Jo Cotterill: Comments from her audience

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LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

Jo Cotterill was the first author I’ve ever met! I love that she loves cheese!!!! (Jennifer G.)

I loved how she showed the science behind electricity and made a model for us. (Madeleine L.)

An amazing experience that taught me a lot including that Jo Cotterill likes cheese, a lot! (Anna W.)

jo1Jo2

“Write what you want to write”

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Creative minds and lots of potential writers are among our students who got to meet Peter Bently at the beginning of the week. Our guest author came to tell PP through P3 students some of his stories and –  in four individual and age appropriate sessions – a little bit about how stories happen.

With the help of Peter Bently’s professional guidance all students got to create their story character. The older year groups even wrote a 12 section story together and successfully mastered the challenge of writing and illustrating their own picture books in the end. Of course there was time for questions, little chats with the author and Peter Bently signed the little autograph cards many students had prepared in advanced or books they had brought along.

The children will definitely remember what they experienced that day:

  • The title of the book does not necessarily have to be known or chosen before starting to write.
  • As you start writing you might not know the end of your story.
  • While you write your story, you will have more ideas and your story might turn out completely different than you thought.
  • Illustrations can save you words sometimes.
  • Meeting a real author!
  • …

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Our young booklovers sure enjoyed and cherished story time with Peter Bently!

Peter Bently on Twitter

Author visits from United States and Finnland

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Libba Bray at European School RheinMain

This school year the library started with two wonderful guests for S6 and S4 students! Libba Bray came to Frankfurt for the Book Fair presenting her novel “Diviners” which is very successful in America and has actually been translated into German. She impressed our S6 students not only with her stand-up workshop on storytelling, but also with her wonderful personality and the amazing story of her life.

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Emmi Itäranta at European School RheinMain

Emmi Itäranta, originally coming from Finnland, travelled to Frankfurt from Great Britain where she is actually living and where she wrote her award-winning debut novel “Memory of Water” in both languages: Finnish and English. Our S4 students were very interested in the story about Norita and her father, a tea-master in a future world, where water is luxury. Many questions on writing and being an author turned up and finally time was too short!