Over 100 students from Cumbrian secondary schools gathered for the Spellbinding Awards Day on Friday 28 June at the North Lakes Hotel near Penrith. This annual reading-for-pleasure event is the culmination of three months of intensive reading. Students had been set the task of reading, rating and reviewing the top ten books, pre-selected by librarians, with the aim of choosing the best book of 2024.
Ahsen, Hattie, Max and Thomas, all from Year 8, represented William Howard School. Authors Sophie Wills and Helen Rutter ran the morning sessions, which included story writing techniques and a Truth or Lie challenge, in which Thomas won a mechanical pigeon. (For the significance of pigeons – read Sophie Wills’s Bite Risk!)
Lunch and book signings were followed by a Q&A session, in which all five authors present, Sophie Wills, Helen Rutter, Ravena Guron, Hiba Noor Khan and Josh Silver, took turns to reveal some of their writing secrets and sources of inspiration.
Towards the end of the day Thomas once again walked away with a prize, for being one of the three most enthusiastic participants in the Spellbinding Awards Day. Ahsen, Hattie and Thomas had books signed by authors, and all four students walked away with some extra titles from the book swap.
A dystopian Young Adult book Happy Head, a debut novel by Josh Silver, was crowned the winning title of 2024. WHS library has three copies available for loan.
