Noble Conflict - Teen Book Group's creative response!

This year has been a Malorie Blackman year for We Sat Down. Little M was Booktrust's young reporter for the day when Blackman was announced as the new Children's Laureate and Little M's English class studied the screenplay of Noughts & Crosses.

Little M had already read, enjoyed and reviewed Noble Conflict, so our teen book group jumped at the opportunity to get reading group copies from the Reading Agency. They all read the novel and then devoted a long Friday evening to creating a video inspired by the novel.

Artwork by Catherine appears in the video but we thought you might like to see the 'stills' of them:

Art by Catherine

 

 

Art by Catherine

 

 

 

And here is the We Sat Down teen book group's video for Noble Conflict:

 

 

This video appears on the Reading Agency's Reading Groups For Everyone website along with some other inspirational ways teens respond to books.

24 hour readathon (& fundraising for the Philippines)

The 24 hour readathon! It's back by popular demand from our book group !

 

 

 

When:

 

8h30, Fri 6 December - 8h30, Sat 7 Dec (GMT)

 

Where:

 

Our places (online & off)

 

What:

 

Read! Anything!

 

You don't have to read or stay up for the whole 24 hours. But there will always be at least one person in our house reading for the whole duration.  Join in with us via Twitter ##wsd24, on the blog, or on our fundraising page.

 

Why:

 

It's a party!

 

Also, we do a bit of fundraising. This time, we're raising money for the British Red Cross, particularly in support of the rescue work they're carrying out in the Philippines as a result of the recent typhoon disaster.

 

Please, donate as much as you can. You can donate online via our justgiving page, or you can

 

Text:

 

MASM48

£2

 

to 70070

 

Please note, the £2 is just a suggestion.

Also, if you've really already done your bit for the appeal, feel free to just join in with the Readathon Party.


Readathon Tips

• Variety of reading material: something that will keep your eyes wide open
• Snacks, snacks, and snacks
• Move it - get a change of atmosphere and bit of excercise too
• Do it with friends - if you're on your own, we'll be around online to keep you company

We'll see you on the 6th or very early on the 7th!

#wsd24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fault in Our Stars - Teen Book Club

October’s teen book club read was John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. The group met at the local library and had a Hazel and Gus style picnic: Dutch themed sandwiches – Gouda cheese, chocolate spread – and fizzy drinks in fancy bottles served in picnic champagne flutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of their thoughts about the book:

Imi

I absolutely loved this book, it's beautiful, emotional and one of my favourite books! It is so well written and by an amazing author. I constantly wanted to read more and I swear I had withdrawal symptoms when I wasn't reading it! Both times I read it I was sobbing even when I knew what was going to happen! All in all, I think it's an incredible book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone! 

Bridget

I thought that it was a good book but it was very predictable as I guessed the ending from the end of the first (or second) chapter, but I didn't really expect it to happen exactly in the way it did and as dramatically. I really liked Isaac, I thought that he was funny and I feel like I connected to him very easily. I thought that at points the words felt quite forced, like he didn't know what to put, also I think he tried too hard to put in quotes that would make people remember the book and think about it. I think that the book was over-hyped, my expectations were very high from what people had told me but it didn't live up to those expectations at all, this could be because they were so high that I didn't give it a chance.

Catherine

I thought The Fault in Our Stars was basically just a cancer novel, not that I have anything against cancer novels. However writing about someone overcoming this particular illness I think tends to restrain the level of originality others can have. As a whole the novel was okay to good, but not exceptional. It is one of the most hyped up books I've ever read and it really didn't live up to my expectations. The characters, while different, weren't very believable. For example Augustus didn't flow. Everything he said felt very scripted, like an over prepared speech. I feel Augustus was sort of made as a character to be famously quoted and therefore he wasn't natural. The characters didn't really connect for me. I think over a longer or teen novel I tend to expect to build a little empathy link with the characters. You come to know their little habits and their flaws and that makes them seem real. The characters and the whole book were really too perfect for me but I can see why some people liked them. The plot was also easy to predict. All in all I thought the book was a nice short novel perhaps for a day on the beach however I was disappointed and sad that it wasn't the emotional page-turning heart-wrencher it was set up to be.

Alice

I loved The Fault in Our Stars and I cried at it.

Mac

I really liked The Fault in Our Stars. It was sad but happy and a few tears were shed. Parts were a little predictable but that didn’t stop me from reading it. People have said it is very over-rated but I don’t think that at all. John Green did a splendid job. I can’t wait to read others of his.

 

Thanks to The Reading Agency for sending us reading group copies.

 

November's book club read was Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman. Thoughts on that coming soon.

 

 

 

 

Ketchup Clouds - Teen Book Club

In September, I (Little M) set up a teen book club at the local library. We had all read Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher, which The Reading Agency had sent us. At this event, we did not just talk about Ketchup Clouds but also had chips and t-sauce (ketchup). You can read mine and M's joint review from January here.

There were six of us. We all introduced ourselves (though most of us knew each other). Then we discussed the book. Overall, I think most people liked the book. Here are some of our comments:



What our teen book club thought of Ketchup Clouds: it's written in the clouds!

"The way this book was written meant that you had to finish it because of the suspense and the connections you felt you had with the characters."

"I enjoyed the book and thought, considering it was written as letters, a style I normally dislike, the plot was good although slightly confusing. I found it quite enjoyable overall."

"I thought it was very good, perhaps a little predictable but it was hard to put down."

"Ketchup Clouds was very well written but I didn't like the feeling of guilt that was transmitted to the reader."

"It was well written but not my kind of book. I enjoyed reading it and I would recommend it to readers."

"It was well written and an interesting concept. I would definitely recommend it to others."

One comment has been withheld as it is a spoiler but it gives good feedback about the twists and turns in the novel.

It was really good fun even though we were a teeny bit too loud for the library (oops, sorry!). I can't wait for the next one, which is tomorrow! We will be discussing John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (also supplied by The Reading Agency).

*****

 

Read M & Little M's interview with Annabel Pitcher.

Marvellous librarians...Anna James

Our blog history and the involvement of some marvellous librarians continues...

2012/13 was our big year for shadowing the Carnegie, from longlist through to winners. During that time, we met up (virtually) with Anna James, the fingers and brains behind #tweetckg, CILIP Carnegie’s first twitter shadowing group. Generationally, Anna is somewhere inbetween Little M and I, and there are multiple convergences in our reading tastes, which is fantastic (you’ll know our tastes from this blog and Anna is over at A Case For Books).

Anna works “in a large secondary school and sixth form inbetween Solihull and Coventry. We have just over 1000 students in main school and around 250 in sixth form. I'm the only librarian in school and am based in the main library although do as much as I can with sixth form.”



Anna's schedule for the CILIP Carnegie 2013 online reading group #tweetckg

WSD: You ran a huge Midwinterblood project. What other sorts of things are you involved in?

Anna: “I try to get involved with as many different things as possible. The Midwinterblood project came about because my line manager had a Year 8 class once a fortnight and was keen to try something different with them and asked me if I had any ideas. I had just finished Midwinterblood and thought it would be perfect to do some interesting lessons around so we created a set of five lessons full of students choosing activities, lots of group work and independent exploration and open creative writing. We also got involved with Drama and Media for some cross-curricular lessons. We also had Marcus Sedgwick (the author) come into school for the last lesson which was brilliant.

The longer I'm here the more teachers have been coming to me and we've been working together to do exciting things, which is wonderful. My pet project has to be our Man Booker shadowing group though. I started this in autumn 2011 as a way to try and engage our sixth formers with exciting contemporary literature and it's been brilliant to see students who just sign up to put it on their UCAS form really get involved and find books that they love. We then take them down to the event in London to meet the authors and it's wonderful seeing them so excited to meet them and get their books signed.”

 

WSD: What is your library space like and what sort of atmosphere/experience do you try to create with it?

Anna: “I inherited a very drab and neglected space, lots of big metal bookcases, over 60 computers and no reading area. It was mainly used as a computer classroom. Over the years we have reclaimed the space, redecorated and created two comfy reading areas. It's now used regularly for research and reading lessons and is packed at lunchtimes.”

 

WSD: What do you like most about the CILIP Carnegie awards?

Anna: “I love Carnegie! It's such a wonderful way to introduce students to a real variety of fiction. The shortlist always provokes brilliant discussions, whether we loved or hated the books - we're rarely indifferent to them. It's a wonderful way for our Book Club to bond and get to know each other as well. Taking my students to the ceremony last year and this year have been real highlights of working here.”

 

WSD: Any top recommended 'adult' fiction reads for 13 or 14 year olds?

Anna: “I end up recommending quite a lot of adult fiction to my keen readers. One of my best readers, who is just finishing Year 9, has been reading Kazuo Ishiguro, Donna Tartt and Kate Atkinson recently! Adult books I would recommend to keen teen readers would be The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Radleys by Matt Haig and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon to name just a few.”

WSD: Anything you're burning to tell us?

Anna: “Just that for all the difficulties and stresses of working in a school library, I love it. I feel very privileged to have a job working to inspire children to read. My students are wonderful and I don't think I'll ever get old of that feeling of a child returning a book you've recommended that they absolutely loved.”

 

Thanks Anna, and we're looking forward to #tweetckg 2014 - or maybe even a Man Booker shadowing.

 

Bookclubbing and A World Between Us

We had our first proper sit-down-together-in-real-life-and-discuss-a book meeting!

When we first started this blog, Little M hoped it would be about sharing and discussion and a bit ‘bookclubby’. That’s much more difficult than we thought it would be – but we’re getting there. We seem to do more of that offline with real life events. We've tried a small book group with Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi, we shadowed the CILIP Carnegie 2013, and we discussed Wonder by RJ Palacio.

Recently, The Reading Agency supplied us with reading group copies of A World Between Us by Lydia Syson and we have become a little more organised (only a little !). The books came with some author and novel background notes as well as discussion prompts, and feedback forms.  It worked so well that we’re carrying on with book groups (though expect the 'form' each one takes to be somewhat different)!

Our next planned reading group discussion is Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher, again supported by The Reading Agency (Reading Groups for Everyone). If you’re interested in joining in with us online, more information on that will follow.

 

Here’s what we sat down together and thought about A World Between Us:

 

Four of us got together – it was quite difficult to find a time that suited everyone, especially with after-school activities and exams/school tests. Other than me (M), the rest of the group were 13 and 14 year olds. They all really enjoyed the novel. Please note, some of you may consider what follows to contain small spoilers – but there’s nothing major that would spoil your own first reading.

The group enjoyed the history/war/romance mix and were pleased that it wasn't a soppy romance. Even though terrible things happened in the novel, most of them saw it as a hopeful novel. They felt there were lots of surprises in the novel and they enjoyed that. The Dolores question (what she did and what happened to her) raised a lot of discussion. Felix was the favourite character. George was their least favourite character and they couldn't quite see his point in the novel other than being a plot device (getting Felix to Paris). On the otherhand, George was my favourite character! They all liked the writing style.

One of the readers hadn't quite finished the book yet (time constraints) and it was quite interesting to talk about what she thought might happen, what she wanted to happen and what would leave her in despair. The general feeling was that everyone would have been distraught if the novel had ended differently.

Towards the end, we used the discussion points that were sent to us. They weren't the sorts of topics that we would voluntarily have picked up in the novel to talk about. However, the questions led to some interesting discussions that weren't directly about the novel. There was some very deep discussion about making spontaneous decisions with long-term consequences like Felix does; considering whether killing in war is murder and what books people would/might not take to a war zone/battlefield. On the question of whether politics can be romantic, I thought that it could, but only one other agreed with me. The notion of romanticising ideological commitment wasn't felt by the others (equal split then!). We chatted for over an hour, the cake was finished, and that was that.

This was the first time a group of us had sat down to discuss a single novel that we’d all read. They enjoyed it and want to do more. So we will.

 

***

A World Between Us was recently Highly Commended for the Branford Boase Award 2013. You can read M's review here, Little M's thoughts here, an interview with Lydia Syson here, and see the different design processes that went into the cover here.

If you’re interested in online book discussions here are some other ones to consider:

Nosy Crow and The Guardian run a superb reading group for adults to discuss children’s books. They run a real life meeting in London which simultaneously links up with participants on Twitter (use the hashtag #NCGKids) and The Guardian online. Their next reading group book is: A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton, 8 August 2013.

 

We Sat Down's summer book club read:

 

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher.

 

 

 

 

Carnegie 2013: Shadowing the Longlist

We follow the Carnegie awards with great interest partly because their lists are one of the places we look to for reading inspiration, we often buy books that make the shortlist and also because it's fun. We were obviously delighted then when we won a whole bundle of books that were on the Carnegie 2013 longlist from Random House Children's Publishers. I spent a lunchtime thumbing through these books to see what I thought.Three of them I'd already read and thoroughly enjoyed and my hunch is that at least one of them will make the shortlist (if not win).

Last year, Little M had been involved with shadowing the shortlist at school, but they started late and didn't get very far with it. So, I had a think and, because we have a couple of guest reviewers, voila, We Sat Down has signed up on the Carnegie's official Shadowing Site. We're planning on 'shadowing' the whole of the Carnegie Longlist. We'll be blogging about it on here too, right up until June 2013 when the winner is announced.

Random House Children's Publishers' Carnegie 2013 Longlist

 

By 'shadowing', we don't promise to read and review every single book. By my count, that'd be 68 and not every one will be to our taste. What we mean is that we'll read and review a great deal of them, but we will have some fun and explorations with each and every single title on the Carnegie 2013 longlist. Because we're not the Carnegie judges, we might occasionally apply our own criteria to the books (but we'll let you know if we do that!).

We'd love to make a really big shadow (although ours will be a shadow of sunshine because we're not going to block out any light nor warmth). So, if anyone is interested in joining us, please get in touch. You can join in by commenting on any of our blog posts that are tagged with Carnegie2013. You can join in by reading or exploring one of the books. We'll have other specific ways to get involved as we go along too.

So to start it all off, which books on the list have you read? Which book would you like to read next?

Here is a list of all the books on the Carnegie 2013 longlist:

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner (Hot Key Books)

 

The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne (Doubleday Children's Books)

After the Snow by S.D. Crockett (Macmillan Children's Books)

All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls (Marion Lloyd Books)

Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Bodley Head)

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Electric Monkey)

The Seeing by Diana Hendry (Bodley Head)

Hitler's Angel by William Osborne (Chicken House)

This is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees (Bloomsbury)

The Broken Road by B.R. Collins (Bloomsbury)

Jasmine Skies by Sita Brahmachari (Macmillan Children's Books)

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (Indigo)

Saving Daisy by Phil Earle (Puffin Books)

Dying To Know You by Aidan Chambers (Bodley Head)

Spy For The Queen of Scots by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday Children's Books)

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Doubleday Children's Books)

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (David Fickling Books)

This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel (Random House David Fickling Books)

Black Arts: The Books of Pandemonium by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil (David Fickling Books)

A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton (David Fickling Books)

Itch by Simon Mayo (Corgi Children's Books)

To Be A Cat by Matt Haig (Bodley Head)

Trouble in Toadpool by Anne Fine (Doubleday Children's Books)
Soldier Dog by Sam Angus (Macmillan Children's Books)

VIII by H.M. Castor (Templar Publishing)

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children's Books)

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle (Marion Lloyd Books)

The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury)

The Double Shadow by Sally Gardner (Indigo)

The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Walker Books)

Call Down Thunder by Daniel Finn (Macmillan Children's Books)

15 Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins (Oxford University Press)

The Prince Who Walked With Lions by Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan Children's Books)

Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid (Puffin Books)

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)

A Skull in Shadows Lane by Robert Swindells (Corgi Children's Books)

The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond (Puffin Books)

A Waste of Good Paper by Sean Taylor (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

In Darkness by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)

Sektion 20 by Paul Dowswell (Bloomsbury)

Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson (Oxford University Press)

At Yellow Lake by Jane McLoughlin (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

Unrest by Michelle Harrison (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)

The Things We Did For Love by Natasha Farrant (Faber and Faber)

Naked by Kevin Brooks (Puffin Books)

The Traitors by Tom Becker (Scholastic)

Dead Time by Anne Cassidy (Bloomsbury)

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy (Andersen Press)

The Treasure House by Linda Newbery (Orion Children's Books)

Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver (Puffin Books)

After by Morris Gleitzman (Puffin Books)

Burn Mark by Laura Powell (Bloomsbury)

The Girl in the Mask by Marie-Louise Jensen (Oxford University Press)

Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes (Walker Books)

Pendragon Legacy: Sword of Light by Katherine Roberts (Templar Publishing)

Scramasax by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Quercus Publishing)

Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan (Walker Books)

Kill All Enemies by Melvin Burgess (Puffin Books)

Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley (Bloomsbury)

The Flask by Nicky Singer (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Buzzing! by Anneliese Emmans Dean (Brambleby Books)

Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher (Hodder Children's Books)

The Abominables by Eva Ibbotson (Marion Lloyd Books)

 

Skulduggery Pleasant: Death Bringer by Derek Landy (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Goblins by Philip Reeve (Marion Lloyd Books)

The Sleeping Army by Francesca Simon (Profile Books)

Goldilocks on CCTV by John Agard (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

The No. 1 Car Spotter and the Firebird by Atinuke (Walker Books)

 

To find out more about shadowing, have a look at the Carnegie Shadowing Site.

Here is a link to the We Sat Down Shadowing Page.

Bullies, Wonder & A Giveaway

Today is the start of Anti-Bullying Week which runs in the UK from 19-23 November 2012. We Sat Down will be supporting the week with reviews of books where bullying is a central theme in the stories.

First up, is Wonder by RJ Palacio, our contribution to the new anti-bullying book club launched by the Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA) and Random House Children’s Publishers.  Plus, there's a chance to win a copy of Wonder by RJ Palacio (see end of post). Wonder has been nominated for the Carnegie medal 2013.

 

Our reviews of Wonder:

Alice (12) was our nominated reader to review Wonder for the Anti-Bullying Alliance book club. Here are her overall thoughts:

About:
The book is about a boy named August who has a deformed face, and what it feels like to be him. The book is told by different people in his life at different points in the story.

Favourite character

Summer because she made friends with August and was one of the first to do it.

Rating

10/10- an excellent read but it can get emotional in places.

Age rating

All ages!


Little M's thoughts:

About:
Wonder is about a boy named August who has a mis-shaped face and is partly deaf. He starts high school without his astronaut helmet and without his mum. August got home-schooled after he was bullied in primary school.

Thoughts:
I would recommend this book to everybody because it shows bullying in school and out of school but there are some kind people too. I think it is an easy read. I found that one of the chapters was different to all the others and I still wonder (wonder - ha!) why. This book is in We Sat Down's Top 20.


Here is a link to M's review of Wonder which was posted earlier this year.

Wonder - UK Giveaway

 

To win a copy of Wonder by RJ Palacio:

 

Leave a comment on this post

 

OR

 

E-mail us: wesatdown2  @  gmail  .  com

with the subject line WONDER

Rules:
1. This giveaway will close at 5pm on Friday 23 November 2012.
2. If you are younger than 13, please get your parent's/guardian's permission to enter.
3. A winner will be selected at random.
4. Winners will be contacted by e-mail for their UK postal address. Please make sure that your entry enables us to contact you.
5. This giveaway is sponsored by ABA and Random House Children's Publishers.

 

The book love was spread

On Sunday 7 October, we hosted our Spreading the Book Love event at Ilkley Literature Festival's Wordsfest afternoon for young people aged 12-18.

We shared over 40 books in lots of different ways with a buildingful of teenagers: bookswapping, book battleship prizes, sticks of candy rock, posters, postcards, bookmarks, our Top 20 books  - and a fair bit of chat!

Apart from browsing through two tables of books, other highlights seemed to be the games of book battleships (thanks to Scholastic for the inspiration), sticks of The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones rock (thanks again, Scholastic!), and receiving interest from people for starting up a teen bookclub. All of the books that were swapped are registered on Bookcrossing, so you can look here to see which books are travelling.

And the book that both Little M and I thought was browsed most? Katya's World by Jonathan L Howard (Strange Chemistry).

Here are some pictures from the event:

Our bookswap

Chatting and sharing

 

 

Celia Rees and Walter Swan who were part of the Wordsfest afternoon

 

Some school teachers and librarians who brought teens from afar and chatted with us about books, blogs and the Carnegie.

 

Hot drinks

An Ilkley Literature Festival assistant

A label in one of our books

 

 

Thank you to Otley Courthouse for accommodating us. And thank you to the following publishers who offered books as prizes and swaps: Hot Key Books, Random House Children's Publishers, Strange Chemistry and Hodder Childrens.

Teen Book Group Discussion - Angel Dust

Teen Book Group discussion – Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi

When we started this blog, one of Little M’s dreams for it was that it would be some sort of book group. So, when Hot Key Books offered reading group book copies of Sarah Mussi’s Angel Dust, we were delighted. Little M organised the rest.

The book group included three 12 year old girls and there was no adult involvement. They all read the book and two of them got together during the summer holidays to discuss it. The discussion and feedback is their own. This is not our usual kind of review but is the feedback from the book group discussion.

Those of you who’ve ever been in a book group will probably smile – the conversation threads about the book often aren’t what you were expecting! And the discussion that continued after this post was typed up went on for ages about books and all sorts of other things......

So, what’s Angel Dust about?

What the publisher’s say:

Would you move heaven and earth for the one you love? When an angel is sent to earth to escort the soul of a young man to the afterlife she chooses to save him instead. But at what cost? An urban love story that recalls Romeo and Juliet by an author with a distinct teen voice.

What our We Sat Down teen book group said:

This book is about an angel called Serafina who is a death angel and she collects the souls from people who have just died. She has to ask these people whether they repent. If they do not, they go to hell. If they do, they go to heaven. She takes them to the gates of heaven or hell and then they’re on their own. Serafina acts like a human but has the powers of an angel.

There is a lot of romance, quite a bit of paranormal and a little bit of adventure. There’s quite a bit of death. The whole story is based around someone dying.

Some thoughts:

We liked the fact that the angels had to get to the dying person before the devil did.

Little M: “This book did make me think what if angels of death were real? And what would it be like when you are dead?”

Alice: “It made me think about angels. Are they real or are they not?”

Little M: “I found the story too jumpy. Like one minute Serafina was there and the next she was somewhere else. Altogether it was a good book, but not really up my street.”

Alice: “I thought that it did jump a little bit but not enough to throw me off the storyline and for me to not know what was happening. Summing up, it was a good book and I loved it.”

The Hot Key Ring guide to Angel Dust

Publication details:

Hot Key Books, August 2012, London, paperback

This copy: Uncorrected proof received from the publishers for reading group use