Please click into the individual blog post, as the links are currently missing on the library page, (formatting issue being investigated).
We hope you have a relaxing half term and I look forward to hearing about your favourite reads when you get back to school.
Congratulations to Alex of Y8 who won our SGS Summer Reading Challenge. Alex has kindly allowed me to share his review of "The Accidental Further Adventures of the 100-Year-Old Man" on our library blog, which you can read further down.
I see from the Sora statistics that 407 of you have reached your Blast Off! achievement of logging onto Sora. Well done to you all! In addition, 108 of you have borrowed at least one book. Good going! If the others did not find a book they wanted, do remember that you can place holds. Moreover, a few of you have achieved Top of the Class by reading more than 10 titles. Wow that is fabulous! I don't know who, but well done if that is one of your Sora achievements. For those of you who haven't logged into Sora yet, here is a reminder of how to borrow library ebooks via Sora. But if you are having any difficulties accessing Sora, then I will be happy to help you.
There is a link to the Sora app on the pupil page of the school website or at the top of the sidebar here on the library page. Download the Sora app or explore in browser https://soraapp.com Enter the setup code uksecondary if asked, and sign in with your school Google login and email password. And in the meantime, here is a Getting Started video guide or there is a PDF version on the P drive in the P:\LIBRARY\Sora folder.
This week's top tip for Sora is that you can filter your book search by format, choosing either ebooks, audiobooks or both.
Continuing with our weekly book recommendations for Black History Month, Malorie Blackman's dystopian Noughts & Crosses is available on Sora. It was televised earlier this year and I believe only has a short time left to watch on iPlayer.
Following the Black Lives Matter protests earlier this year, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge jumped 155 places to top the non-fiction book-selling chart, (available on Sora). At the same time, Booker prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo was top of the fiction chart.
A virtual event for Black History Month is to Join author Kandace Chimbiri for a talk about her book The Story of the Windrush, which was published yesterday. This event on 21 October at 6pm will explore the legacy of the Windrush pioneers and writing non-fiction for young people.
More book award news again this week. I mentioned one of Angie Thomas's titles last week for Black History Month. Well her latest book On The Come Up has won the 2020 FCBG Children’s Book Award for Older Readers.
And the More Confident Readers category has been won by Tom Palmer for his book D-Day Dog. This was also the overall winner. Coincidentally, Tom has recently sent us these personalised messages, along with some posters which you may have seen that I have pinned up in the corridor. Plus I have a few of his bookmarks to give out to some of Y7 once you are allowed in the library.
You'll find that there are lots of Tom's football books on Sora, although none of his historical stories.
Here is Alex's book review that I promised to share. What has everyone else been reading?
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Now for a quick round-up of a few other ideas and resources.
Last term I mentioned The Book of Hopes by over 110 authors and illustrators, which is free to read online via The National Literacy Trust Family Zone. It has now been published in hardback with a donation from the sale of each book going to NHS Charities Together, in gratitude for the incredible efforts of all those who worked in hospitals over the quarantine period.
Catalyst is a science magazine for 14-19 year olds that provides STEM insight with articles on cutting-edge science, research and interviews and it is available free online.
There is a creative writing competition here for KS3 and KS4. I have registered for us as the School Library rather than individual classes but you will need to use the following link to set up an account using your school @lgflmail.net email address if you wish to enter. You may submit a short piece of writing or graphic novel (fiction or nonfiction – in any genre).
Do you like riddles? There is book riddle solving competition here.
English Heritage are holding an Untold Stories Poetry competition.
Epsom Library are running both writing and drawing competitions on the theme of Autumn, Halloween or Bonfire Night.
Author, Kaye Umansky has issued a challenge for you to dress up as a character from one of her books for a chance to win a signed book.
There is an art competition here to design thank you cards for the Juvenile Arthritis Research charity. Open to those aged up to 15.
Yr 8 will remember last Easter that the Headmaster recommended Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a suggested competition read and we followed up with a feature in our very first library blog post. Well during lockdown, the V&A museum had to postpone their Alice exhibition. They will now be launching their Curious Alice VR Experience with a free preview on 22 October, (non-VR option also available). Subsequently there will be a cost to download the full VR experience.
Over half term, it is the Family Learning Festival, which includes a mixture of physical and online events. I've picked out one event to highlight, which is a free online behind the scenes historical tour of Westminster Abbey on 28 October.
Finally now for a bit of fun, we have a Halloween wordsearch to share with you. I created this wordsearch at puzzle-maker.com myself and you may wish to try making your own word searches or crosswords there.
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