DJ visit boosts book week
by Anna Roth
Book Week took place between April 20 - 23 and a wide range of visits and activities were organised by school librarian Collette McElhinney and carried out with the help of the staff.
"All over the country, schools and colleges were celebrating World Book Day and I decided that we should make a whole week’s celebration at Bootle High School", Ms McElhinney said.
On Monday April 20, Claire Curtis-Thomas attended a special Year 7 assembly to launch the week. She spoke about why reading and books are important to her and how they generally helped her to get to where she is now. She also read a chapter from her favourite book.
In the afternoon, Kev Seed, the breakfast show presenter at City FM, came in and read a copy of "English Is A Peculiar Language" which is a comedy piece. Afterwards he did a question and answer session and gave the Year 7 pupils stickers and t-shirts.
Bootle High School was mentioned on his show a few times before the event and on Tuesday he dedicated a song to all Year 7s and to the Library.
On Tuesday, seven pupils from Mrs Lister’s Reading Enrichment group visited St Oswald’s Primary School to read to the pupils and the visit went so well that they were invited back at any time to repeat the experience.
Finally on World Book Day itself, April 23, Mrs Calcutt from Usborne Books came in and ran workshops for all Year 7s on how books are made. She brought materials so the pupils had the chance to make a simple one themselves.
The week went very well and everybody seemed to enjoy it. Ms McElhinney said: "It was quite exciting and we had a lot of books borrowed from the library that week. I think it gave them an interest in books and in the library generally."
Asked if she was planning to do a similar event in 1999, Ms McElhinney replied: "I will not be here next year but I hope that the next librarian wil do another book week and that it will be as successful as it was this year."
