World Book Day Display Entry: Booklings Chat Flies High!

To create a World Book Day display that demonstrates how Glenthorne High School is Flying High With Reading, we used our Book Club’s Twitter connections.

Every month for the past three years our Book Club, known as the Booklings, takes part in an exciting lunchtime activity known as #BooklingsChat. Every month our students (and staff) sit down and talk to an author using the Library’s Twitter account (@glenthornelrc).  We ask questions about writing, surviving high school, favourite books and of course the most important question of all: pineapple on a pizza, Yes or No?

We’ve had some really fantastic talks with authors like Darren Shan, Ruta Sepetys, Lauren Oliver, Jeff Zentner, Christopher Edge, Becky Albertalli and dozens more. It’s one of our most popular programs, not only does it connect students with the authors that they love, it brings new students to the Library on a regular basis, some of whom don’t usually use the space at all. It also brings staff members who read YA and Middle Grade novels to the Library to see what all of the fuss is about.

One by one, students take turns approaching the computer to ask the author a question using the hashtag #Booklingschat. This activity is a lot of fun but it’s also spawned some really touching moments with students asking serious questions about mental health, wellbeing and issues facing LGBTQ teens.

We decided to use this program as inspiration for our World Book Day display. The Twitter logo was an obvious choice as it represents flying and connecting the students with authors across the world. It also introduces students to books that they hadn’t previously discovered and has brought huge numbers of new students to the Library which is of course one of our main priorities – getting students reading and falling in love with new books.

We had one of our #BooklingsChat leaders in Year 9 draw the Twitter bird. We then reached out to other authors and looked back at authors we had talked to previously via Twitter and selected some amazing quotes about the importance of reading.

With the help of the Library Assistant, students then wrote these messages on the windows of the library, twisting and spiralling out of the Twitter’s bird mouth like a beautiful song. It was a Herculean task because every letter had to be written on the window backwards so that they could be read as you approached the Library from the outside.

Below are some of the examples of the messages we have received:

Robin Stevens:  Reading lets you see the world with new eyes, and shows you you’re not alone.

Holly Bourne: A  good story can help you make sense of your life, or help you escape your life on the days you need to. They're the purest, safest, kind of magic.

Katharine Corr: Reading is like having your own personal TARDIS with an ever changing cast of companions and villains

 

Lauren Wolk: Books are my passports to places new and old, to the past and future, and into the lives of other people, real and imagined

 

Sinead O’Hart: When I read, I can feel my imagination stretch to encompass worlds, lands and lives not my own.

Peadar O Guilin: Reading is my chance to be an astronaut, a hero, an explorer.

 

Kat Ellis:  Reading is a powerful thing; it lets you read minds, visit new places and different worlds

Sarah Govett:  Reading for me is exploring ideas, new worlds and what it means to be human

Sarah Crossan: The right book is out there just waiting for you to find it!

Lisa Heathfield: Reading is a door to a million new worlds

Christopher Edge: Books will inspire you to build a better world

Dave Rudden: Books are engines for empathy

Denis Markell: Reading is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.

I am very proud of the students for their ridiculously hard work and dedication to this task and for making #BooklingsChat such a success.