IN BRIEF
WIRRAL BOOK AWARDS
AUTHOR VISIT ‘A SPOONFUL OF MURDER’
AT BIRKENHEAD SCHOOL
The Wirral Book Awards are held every year for students
in Wirral Secondary Schools. This year, 17 books were
shortlisted and the review was held at Bebington High
Sports College. Birkenhead School recently welcomed acclaimed
children’s author, Robin Stevens to talk to Prep and Senior
pupils from the School and local primary schools, and
was organised in conjunction with Linghams Booksellers
in Heswall.
Five authors from the shortlist visited the school to speak with the
students about their life and passion for writing. They read excerpts
from their books and met with the students to answer questions.
Students from schools across Wirral attended this amazing event.
Kicking off the day was London author Sarah Alexander, with her
book ‘The Art Of Not Breathing’. This was Sarah’s first published
book and she drew her inspiration for the book from her love and
experience of free-diving.
Simon Green was next discussing his latest book, ‘ Noah Can’t Even’
a wonderful book about a young boy ‘finding himself ’ amongst his
chaotic home life. Simon’s love of comedy and drama shone through
as he spoke about what it was like growing up in a small town in
Lincolnshire. Alice Broadway, then spoke about ‘Ink’, the second
book in the Ink Trilogy series. Leora living in a place where existence
is marked throughout your life with tattoos, becoming a map of
who you are, turning into a memorial for all-time. Those who are
not worthy, are fated to have their skin cast into oblivion, their lives
condemned to be forgotten forever. The story is about what happens
after Leora father dies.
Will Hill talked about his book ‘After the Fire’ which is an entirely
new novel quite different from his, ‘Department 19’ series. It is
a super intense and chilling young adult fiction that will have you
hooked from the very first page. An enthralling psychological story
of a girl whose life is shattered ‘After the Fire’.
And finally author, Non Pratt, with her book ‘Truth or Dare’ A
powerful and touching novel about bravery. Non explained about
the story, being both amusing and heart wrenching at the same time.
Claire and Sef have this bond that was basically forced upon them
by a need to help Kam and the book shows both Claire’s and Sef ’s
point of view of the same story. All of the authors were extremely
inspirational and impressed on the students that if they want to be
authors and they have ideas they can achieve their goals with hard
work, determination and persistence. Students were able to buy the
books at the end of the day and the authors signed copies and chatted
with students - a wonderful and inspiring day.
16 wirrallife.com
Robin visited as part of her ‘Spoonful of Murder’ book tour, to talk
about the new instalment of her thrilling ‘Murder Most Unladylike’
book series. Robin is the UK’s sixteenth most popular children’s author
and talked to the children about her passion for reading and writing
when she was growing up and how she’d always wanted to “give stories
to other people”. Wanting to read books with detectives her own age
in them, meant Robin knew from an early age exactly which genre she
wanted to write and her hugely popular murder mysteries are read by
many children today.
Following a reading from this latest release, it was then the pupils’
turn to detect and plan their own murder mystery. Robin started by
highlighting the sections of the plan needed, the setting, the victim, the
clues, the suspects and the resolution and together they started to set
the scene for their story. This showed Robin’s enthralled audience just
how easy it can be to create the first plan of a mystery story and the
creative process clearly inspired the audience members, with many of
them starting to plan their own stories before even leaving the event.
Robin Stevens’ visit is part of Birkenhead School’s wider English
Enrichment programme and follows a talk from Mark Powers, the
author of the children’s trilogy book series, ‘Spy Toys’, who visited in
February. With the day of his visit being the day that Mark’s third book,
‘Spy Toys – Undercover’, was published, the children were particularly
lucky to have him speak with them about his books, his love of writing
and about how, they too, can become authors. Robin and Mark are the
latest in a number of high-profile speakers who have visited the School
in the past year, these have included TV presenter and broadcaster,
Clare Balding, former England Cricket Captain, David Gower, OBE
and TV presenter and actor, Sir Tony Robinson.
On Thursday 19th April, the School is welcoming Carl Fogarty,
MBE, World Champion and Superbike racing legend, for a Linghams
Booksellers event and tickets are available for the public event through
Linghams by calling 0151 342 7290.