Schools out for summer
18 July 2012 12:00AM
Last time I blogged I was on my way to school and I must say it was great to see the kids in Year 6 at St Albans Primary School London, once again. I was just in time before they finished for their summer vacation and, in their case prepared to move on to their new schools in the autumn term. This is one group of kids that I really want to keep in contact with as I have visited them 3 times in the past academic year and certainly believe we have bonded. They agreed to read Chavos, The Kids of Distrito Federal and review it for me. They were honest, objective and the teacher should be very proud of their high standard of work which was actually extra-curricular and done in the half-term holidays. Reading the book was fun but doing a review as precisely as they did, required real thought and analysis. Surprisingly each one had a different favourite character and seemed to have put a different spin on the book. The most critical of reviews and it was by no far a bad one, simply said,
‘This is not my kind of book but I still found it interesting and learnt lots….I usually read Sci-fi.’
So good reviews, they scored me well and I believe they were honest!
I am thrilled to say that my reviewers have all agreed to keep in touch with me and in September, review my second novel, Chavos, The Quest. If you’re a children’s writer, who best to review your books than the kids themselves? Forget the Guardian, the Mail and all those other papers; if 2/3rds of a class like my writing, I’m happy.
I also visited a fabulous group of kids recently from a poor community and whilst many of them said they would love to read Chavos, they couldn’t afford to buy a copy. So a great idea came to mind. We had a couple of hundred first edition Chavos books in storage at the office and as this edition had been superseded and much improved we were never likely to sell these books. S-o-o-o, back to see the kids again, they were delighted to receive a copy of the original book. Some of them were half way through the prologue before I had even left the premises. Awh! How lovely. They were all blessed with a free book and I was blessed with their gratefulness and enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, having visited about 200 schools to date, my visits are over for a while. Not because schools out for summer but because it’s hard work, very time consuming, and for no pay! Usually, I’m considerably out of pocket but that’s what authors do Isn’t it?
I have to say I have really enjoyed visiting the schools this past couple of years especially those who gave me a free school dinner. They still do chocolate sponge and custard! The schools from inner city to remote and rural, and all so diverse and different I certainly have some stories to tell – about teachers and pupils. But that would be unethical, wouldn’t it? So my lips are sealed.
Enjoy the holidays if you are one of those lucky teachers who has 6 weeks’ vacation. As for me, I hope I get a couple of weeks off soon.
Chat later
Anna
