There is nothing G loves to do more than read; she really is her mother’s daughter when it comes to that particular pastime. Whenever she has a spare 5 minutes, and even if she doesn’t, you can usually find her with a book in hand, curled up somewhere quiet in the house. In fact, if you ever need to track G down, the best place to start is her bedroom as the chances are you’ll find her on her bed, engrossed in the story unfolding before her and completely lost to the outside world. Mike and M will willingly tell you that I am no different, much to M’s disgust, so the occasional times when it’s just G and me in the house can be surprisingly quiet.

Not long into the new term, G’s secondary school announced that they were taking part in  Read For My School 2016 organised by the Book Trust, which encourages children in Years 3-8 from across the UK to see how many books they can read between Christmas and Easter. Every school that takes up the challenge is given access to the RFMS website and each pupil registered has an on-line diary in which they can record the books they’ve read, make recommendations, write book reviews and even access some books on-line to read. G was excited by this opportunity and has been faithfully updating her reading record on a weekly basis, not least because both RFMS and her school library have offered the incentives of prizes for various achievements to the students taking part. I have asked G to be completely honest about the books she adds to her list and only include those she has actually read since Christmas, telling her that others may be a little unscrupulous when it comes to winning prizes, but that I want it to be an accurate record of her reading habits.

As well as this reading challenge, the school library has been running other events throughout the year to encourage their pupils to read, an approach which has really impressed me. At the start of the school year, G wrote her reasons for wanting to meet author Huw Powell and during the recent half-term, she penned an acrostic poem as part of another competition to mark Harry Potter night in early February. These initiatives not only encourage the children to read, but also help them develop key writing and literacy skills in a fun way, something which really benefits G as, despite her passion for reading, she struggles to capture her imagination and express her thoughts on paper.

Just before half-term, G came home absolutely buzzing with excitement about the “Book Blind Date”, which she had taken part in during her day at school. This time the school library had wrapped up a number of books and added a tag which simply contained 3 or 4 words hinting towards the theme of the story. G had chosen one which intriguingly stated:

and was desperate to see what book she had picked. She waited until we got home and then, with great fanfare and both M and me watching, she ripped the paper from the front cover to reveal her selection. Her choice, “Shipwrecked” by Siobhan Curham, was something she’d probably never have chosen for herself, but this fantastic idea of a blind date with a book really appealed to her and offered her a new author to experience and perhaps a new genre to further explore. I loved this particular event as it grabbed G’s attention and those of her friends, as evidenced by the flurry of text messages that followed the grand reveal as they compared titles, and even appealed to M, who is desperate to know whether he’ll have the chance to take part when he’s in Year 7!