Literacy NewsJune – July 2015

Kelmscott MagazineCreated by students for students

What’s inside:

Books and Entertainment sectionBooks versus films – The showdown by Abdur Raheem MohanGame on? How I fell out of love with gaming by Adam DhanseyThe big debate in children’s books by Sefora TapalgaShould books have age restrictions by Abbi PagetBook review by Kira Marie CoplandWhich Hogwarts house are you? By Jessica Tunks

On Our DoorstepWilliam Morris, local hero by Zara NajeebEntertainment in Walthamstow by Khadijah ChaudhreyThe Day the Zepplins came by Domenick TafeWar is Sweet poem by Nazima Ahmed

The Big Wide WorldShould we spend money on space travel by Isma AfzalLiving without a mobile phone by Abbi PagetHope to cope with Anxiety by Mariam AbdallahAnxiety poem by Rabia MuhammedIs the internet killing local shops? By Hasnain LatifTen things you should know about social media by Amna

Price

only

50p

Available to buy from the library

More students ‘reading for pleasure’’

Increasing number s of children are choosing to read in their spare time, with six in 10 Favouring work of fiction, research suggests.

The National Literacy Trust questioned 32,000 students aged 8 -18. The most popular books were Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Enjoyment and frequency of reading are both at their highest levels for nine years, the survey suggests:

• 40% reading was cool• 23.2% reading was not cool• 54.4% enjoyed reading ‘very much’• 35.5% enjoyed reading ‘a bit’• 10% did not enjoy reading at all

There was also an increase in the proportion who said they read daily outside class, from 32.2% in 2013 to 41.1% in 2014.

The charity attributes this sharp rise to initiatives such as Bookstart, the Summer Reading Challenge, its own Young Readers Programme and the work of a series of children's authors who have campaigned as children’s laureates.

May 2015

Winner of the this year’s Alliance of Radical Booksellers - Little Rebels children’s book award for radical fiction.

The winning title is all about the challenges facing young carers.

Red asks, 'Will we always be together?''Always,' I say. 'Just you and me in that little boat, watching the scarlet ibis flying back to the Caroni Swamp.'

Scarlet's used to looking after her brother, Red. He's special - different. Every night she tells him his favourite story - about the day they'll fly far away to the Caroni Swamp in Trinidad, where thousands of birds fill the sky. 

But when Scarlet and Red are split up and sent to live with different foster families, Scarlet knows she's got to do whatever it takes to get her brother back.

Scarlet Ibis by Gill Lewis

Available to borrow from our school library.Genre: C

oming-of-age

and tragedy

The Young Romantics poem of the year 2015

Daniella Cugini won the first prize in the Keats-Shelly Young Romantics prize: Presence. Young people aged 16-18 were asked to write poems and short stories on the theme of Lost AngelsPresence

darker, I say. night knits the moon’s eye shut.quiet, I say. the birds swallow their songs.apples fall at my touch. the moths unfurland soar into the flame. it’s good, I say.it’s healthy. stop it now. a child poised

at the edge of the lake. each star collapsedinto evening. go back, I say. go back

to the beginning. the trees rewreathe themselvesin amber. amber succumbs to green, as calm

to fever. returning is a slow affair.each berry regathered, back to before

the birth of Christ. bring her here, I say.the earth draws back, and there she is. petal cleaves

to bone. bring her back, I say, louder.she blinks twice. her hands open to acceptthe rain. I turn away, for now she can hearme breathing. they seal her in. back home

I wear flowers in my hair, faintly slickwith oil. die for me, I say, and they listen.

Hashtag is ‘children’s word of the year’Hashtag has been declared "children's word of the year" by the Oxford University Press.

OUP analysed more than 120,421 short stories by children aged between five and 13 years old, submitted to the BBC's 500 Words competition.

According to the OUP, new technology is increasingly at the centre of the children's lives but how they are writing about it is changing fast.

Words including email, mobile and Facebook are in decline, it said.

They are being replaced by the likes of Instagram, Snapchat and emoji.

And the word television has now been superseded by phone.The report also notes a sudden new arrival in children's sentences. The use of the hashtag symbol # to add an extra meaning or comment at the end of a sentence has become commonplace. #IblameTwitter #AndInstagram Source BBC news online 28th May 2015

Kelmscott Book Clubs

We have started three book clubs at Kelmscott school in year’s 7,8 and 9.If you are interested in joining or would possibly like to start and lead your book club please see Ms Longman for further information.

‘Its great to read for pleasure with my friends and talk about what’s happening in the book’ quote from a year 7 student.

Books the current groups are reading

What should I read next?

The Butterfly ClubBy Jacqueline Wilson

Tina is a triplet, but she's always been the odd one out. Her sisters Phil and Maddie are bigger and stronger and better at just about everything. Luckily, they look after teeny-tiny Tina wherever they go - but when the girls start in scary, super-strict Miss Lovejoy's class, they're split up, and Tina has to fend for herself for the first time.Tina is horrified when she's paired up with angry bully Selma, who nobody wants to be friends with. But when Miss Lovejoy asks them to help her create a butterfly garden in the school playground, Tina discovers she doesn't always need her sisters - and that there's a lot more to Selma than first meets the eye.

Genre: Comedy a

nd

adventure

Available to borrow from our school library.

What should I read next?

When Hitler Stole Pink RabbitBy Judith Kerr

Suppose your country began to change. Suppose that without your noticing, it became dangerous for some people to live in Germany any longer. Suppose you found, to your complete surprise, that your own father was one of those people.That is what happened to Anna in 1933. She was nine years old when it began, too busy with her schoolwork and toboganning to take much notice of political posters, but out of them glared the face of Adolf Hitler, the man who would soon change the whole of Europe – starting with her own small life.Anna suddenly found things moving too fast for her to understand. One day, her father was unaccountably missing. Then she herself and her brother Max were being rushed by their mother, in alarming secrecy, away from everything they knew – home and schoolmates and well-loved toys – right out of Germany.

Genre

: Hist

ory

and

sem

i-aut

obio

grap

hica

l

Available to borrow from our school library.

What should I read next?

I Am Zlatan IbrahimovicBy Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Lagercrantz and Ruth Urbom

'Why be a Fiat when you can be a Ferrari?'Welcome to planet Zlatan. This is the story of how a Swedish outsider rose from poverty to become a football genius.In his own inimitable style, Zlatan recalls every struggle, every goal, and every training ground bust-up on his journey to dominate the world's top clubs, including Ajax, Juventus, Internazionale, Barcelona, Milan and Paris Saint-Germain.Full of wicked one-liners and amazing stories, Zlatan lifts the lid on some of the biggest names in football, including Guardiola, Mourinho and Messi.

Genre: Sport

(football)

Available to borrow from our school library.

What should I read next?

Scarlet and Ivy: The Lost TwinBy Sophie Cleverly

This is the story of how I became my sister…A spine-tingling mystery set in a creepily atmospheric boarding school. Ivy must uncover the secrets behind her twin sister Scarlet’s disappearance before it’s too late.When troublesome Scarlet mysteriously disappears from Rookwood School, terrifying Miss Fox invites her quiet twin sister Ivy to ‘take her place’.Ivy reluctantly agrees in the hopes of finding out what happened to her missing sister. For only at Rookwood will Ivy be able to unlock the secrets of Scarlet’s disappearance, through a scattered trail of diary pages carefully hidden all over the school.Can Ivy solve the mystery before Miss Fox suspects? Or before an even greater danger presents itself. Genre: M

ystery, a

ction

and adventure

Available to borrow from our school library.

What should I read next?

We All Looked UpBy Tommy Wallach

'This generation's The Stand ...at once troubling, uplifting, scary and heart-wrenching' Andrew Smith, author of Grasshopper Jungle Before Ardor, we let ourselves be defined by labels - the athlete, the outcast, the slacker, the overachiever. But then we all looked up and everything changed. They said the asteroid would be here in two months. That gave us two months to leave our labels behind. Two months to become something bigger than what we'd been, something that would last even after the end. Two months to really live. Genre: S

ci-fi a

nd

futuris

tic

Available to borrow from our school library.