Book Week was something

we celebrated by writing books...and then getting our pupils to write books. This was many years ago and I wonder what would happen if the same "competition" was reintroduced into schools. It won't happen.

The state newspaper ran this competition and the schools participated. Not all children wrote books of course and the "books" were often nothing more than an illustrated school "composition" made into a book like format.  The books and other book related items would be displayed at a major department store in the city. They had a sixth floor auditorium used for such things and school groups could visit during the week.

It was all hard work but a lot of learning went on. I remember teaching my year six students about book binding. We read Cynthia Harnett's "The load of Unicorn" which they rated as "a super story miss!" There were no budding authors in the room but they all helped to produce a respectable display at school. The following year I was promoted to school librarian and organised another display for Book Week.

Book Week was about reading and writing all those years ago. Yes, it is a long time ago and things have changed. Now Book Week seems to be about dressing up as a character in a book. There are costumes available from the cheap shop at the shopping centre and from the "untidy" shop near another shopping centre and even in one of the supermarkets. I have heard parents and grandparents worrying about the costume a child is going in and more. I am not sure what this has to do with books.

Yesterday the knitting group met at the library. Our year 8 student was present. She is one of those highly intelligent, hard working students who likes to be involved. Her school was "celebrating Book Week"  and she told us, "Everyone was supposed to dress up as something or other. There were a whole heap of things you were supposed to do but it didn't have much to do with reading. I took a sick day and went to woodwork with my mum and learned how to do something I have wanted to do for ages."

I would not normally condone something like skipping a school activity but it was right for R.... She did not need that "heap of things" that "didn't have much to do with reading". From other reports the day was undoubtedly fun for most of the students but one of the teachers admitted to me "There was very little learning going on."  Some of the costumes would have been simple but many would have been costly. Some of the students were not free to participate in all the activities because they come from different cultural backgrounds. 

The school thought it was a successful day and perhaps it was but how much more the students could have achieved if they had been asked to turn one of their creative essays into book form. Some of them are old enough to write "chapters" and more. What about researching and writing some simple non-fiction for a younger sibling - and then illustrating? There are potentially no end of activities more valuable than dressing up and playing games and they might end with actually reading more books.