And so it begins… Book Week Month 2016
It really ought to be called Book Week Month. According to my diary, Book Week extends halfway into September.
It’s a good thing it’s a lot of fun. This was a special beginning to Book Week because it was also a Story Crowd festival with uber-talented Jules Faber and tween-scene-queen Belinda Murrell.
My biggest fail at any school visit is I usually forget to take a photo. But I can be resourceful… so I stole this one off Belinda’s Facebook post.
Me, Jules Faber and Belinda Murrell. Photo: Belinda Murrell
Day 1 began with an hour-and-a-half train trip, followed by a 30 minute wait at the bus stop and an hour long bus ride. To make this happen, I had to get up at 4.30am and be out the door by 5am.
In truth, it’s not all that much more travel time than most of my school visits. When you live on the South Coast, it’s a long way from almost everywhere.
But it’s always worthwhile. This time, the kids at The Pittwater House School made it so.
I talked about Sad, the Dog with K-2 and we swapped pet stories. Fortunately, all their pets were well-loved and even the stick insect had a name.
Year 3 – 4 were surprised to hear that how Pokemon inspired the animal spirits of the Samurai Kids, and what was once ‘just another slide’ now generates an excited groundswell of questions, thanks to Pokemon Go (which is btw why I don’t mind waiting at the bus stop. There are Pokemon everywhere in Sydney).
In all my sessions, I did an exercise on onomatopoeia, using my gong. It’s always fun to make a noise in the library. I suspect Year 5-6, although they probably wouldn’t admit it, had even more fun with this than the Kinders did.
And there was chocolate, too, thanks to the very lovely and welcoming librarians.
Belinda gave me a lift to Manly – which meant I avoided the risk of a second surly bus driver who didn’t want to have to remember to tell me which was my stop – and ended the day on a high note with a ferry trip across the harbour (catching a Wartortle along the way).
Book Week Month is the best.
