The Book is Dead? Not at THIS School!

January 20, 2012 by 

An excerpt from the Reader's Cup - taken with my mobile phone!


I was thrilled when Thomas' Day School in Battersea (London) invited me to be their guest for their Readers' Cup Challenge, in which each house fielded a team of readers to compete in a quiz featuring three books.

  

The books were Trash by Andy Mulligan, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively, and Tall Story by me!

The teams valiantly read the books over the Christmas holidays. The atmosphere in the school auditorium was electric - children were cheering for their houses, headmaster Ben Thomas himself acted as quiz master and librarian Catherine Kmet kept score. A hundred points to win with every correct answer. And a hundred points to lose with every wrong one! Fingers on the buzzer!

Headmaster Ben Thomas conducts the challenge
Someone awesome brilliantly set up a complex technological feast of a show - with buzzers, spotlights and at the very end, an explosion of confetti over the competitors. The featured books were beautifully introduced before each round of questions. In between rounds, the audience got to answer random questions about books.

My goodness, aren't they tall! Or am I shrinking?

Schools, take note! What a terrific way to celebrate reading!