World Book Night giving

In search of male humans on World Book Night 

23 April 2014 would have been William Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday, is our dog’s 7^th birthday, and is the first time I’ve been a World Book Night giver!

World Book Night is one of The Reading Agency charity’s programmes that aims to inspire a love of reading. Twenty books are selected for special edition World Book Night titles because they are brilliant reads. Thousands of volunteers apply to give one of these titles to people on World Book Night who are not regular readers or don’t own books. I chose The Humans by Matt Haig because it is hilarious and heartwarming, and Haig is a Yorkshire based author – and I’m giving in Yorkshire.

This special World Book Night  postcard was delivered with every copy of The Humans

It may not be night yet but my copies of The Humans have been given! Little M and I took a tote bag, a rucksack and a dog on a sunny trail around our local village and town in search of ‘non-readers’. After seeing this research that suggests 30% of men don’t read books, I went in search of men. Books were given (and turned down!) by men working on construction sites, in builders’ merchants and hardware stores, in garages, in bike shops, in pubs, and in their own homes. Four copies went to women (who were more regular though not prolific readers): a female plumber, a charity worker, a shopkeeper, and a receptionist.

Many of the recipients were gracious and excited, and at least one copy is set to go on holiday and be read by the pool. Some recipients were reluctant because they didn’t read and thought they would be more likely to pass it on to someone else. Some people turned the offer down outright because they didn’t want to read and a few were ineligible because their lives were already surrounded by books and the pleasure of reading (they weren’t sure if this response would delight or sadden me!!). We also met another Giver on our route who was giving Peter James’ The Perfect Murder and it was lovely to chat with him (he also loves The Humans!).

It was great fun chatting along the way with people who loved reading, or were delighted (and surprised) to give it a go (if they can find the time!). I hope they really enjoy The Humans!

World Book Night special edition of The Humans, front and back cover

You can read my review of The Humans here.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Frank’s Thirteen in 13 Campaign

   

On this day in 1942, a young girl was given a diary for her 13th birthday. She recorded her thoughts in this diary while she and her Jewish family hid out in an attic before being captured by Nazis. Her name was Anne Frank and her diary is know worldwide as The Diary of a Young Girl.  Inspired by her diary, the Anne Frank Trust is running the Thirteen in 13 campaign.

 

If you’re thirteen years old - at any time during 2013 – get involved with the Thirteen in 13 campaign. It’s your chance to tell the Prime Minister, David Cameron, what you would do if you were the prime minister.

 

Anne Frank at a desk. Image courtesy of Anne Frank Trust.

 

The Anne Frank Trust said that the “Thirteen in 13 campaign gives young people the opportunity to make their voices heard at the highest level. We are inviting thirteen year olds to write a letter to the Prime Minister expressing their thoughts and hopes about growing up in twenty-first century Britain and telling him about the world in which they would like to be adults. Thirteen selected letters will be presented to Prime Minister, David Cameron, excerpts from which will be printed in The Times in early July. The Times will also print an open letter of reply from the Prime Minister, responding to the views and concerns of Britain’s newest teenagers.”

 

 

Francesca Simon, one of the judges for the competition element of the campaign (some of you 13 year olds might know her from your Horrid Henry reading days), told us a bit about her involvement.

WSD: When you were 13, what might you have written in a letter to the Prime Minister?

Francesca: When I was 13 I was very active politically. I grew up in America and I would have written about ending the war in Vietnam and gun control. Those were the two issues that really concerned me.

WSD: What inspired you to get involved with this campaign?

Francesca: I'm Jewish and so I've always been very aware that what happened to Anne Frank would have happened to me and any relatives living in Europe at the time. I think it is important that Anne's legacy be remembered. Children are the future and the sooner that they get involved in the issues that affect them the better! I first met The Anne Frank Trust when I gave a talk in Cambridge as part of a week looking at families and refugees and was delighted that they approached me to be involved in this campaign.Little M said about the campaign: “I think it is very good and it may help the world become a better place. I have already written a letter.”

 

 

To find out more about taking part, check out the Thirteen in 13 campaign website – it’s easy to get involved and takes just a couple of minutes to upload your letter. Do it before 21 June 2o13!

 

 

You can support the campaign

 

on Facebook (facebook.com/13in13campaign)

and Twitter (@13in13campaign).

Join the conversation with #Thirteenin13.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children's Laureate Announcement 2013-2015

First of all, we’d like to thank Booktrust for inviting us to the Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2013 – 2015 Announcement on 4 June 2013, and particularly for asking Little M to be their young reporter for the day. The whole event was superdooperfabulastic! Look out for Little M’s blogpost about the event which will be posted by Booktrust.

For those of you who don’t know, Malorie Blackman was announced as the 8^th Children’s Laureate. Krishnan Guru-Marthy (Channel 4 news journalist) introduced the new laureate as someone whose time had come! These are my (M’s) brief thoughts on the day and Malorie Blackman in her new role.

In her acceptance speech, Malorie Blackman set an enthusiastic, energetic, vibrant and determined tone for her spell as the 8^th Children’s Laureate. Based on her novels, we thought she had a good chance of being the new Laureate although we didn’t know if a writer whose books were predominantly for teens would ‘qualify’. They do!

Diversity is sure to be a key element of her laureateship not only in terms of demographics and life experiences but also in terms of genres and literary/storytelling forms and she made particular references to comics and short stories. Her aim is to make reading irresistible and to have “more children reading more.”

Just like her books, Blackman delivered a vocal punch and warned that she will be “championing public libraries” as it was libraries that both inspired her and “taught me to aspire..(..)..they made my own vision sharper and clearer, ” she said.

And then we went all Julia Donaldson style with time and had a bit of a squash and a squeeze: somehow between the Guardian kids site webcast recording, teen reader and Sky News interviews, I managed to scrape in a little heart-to-heart chat with Blackman about the theme of mothers in her novel, Knife Edge (second in the Noughts and Crosses sequence).

Having read some of her novels, having listened to her speeches, having seen her interactions with people, and having spent a privileged half an hour in her company, I think Malorie Blackman is going to be a hardworking, inspirational and outspoken Laureate. I think this may be her striding edge.

It was also great to meet the team that supports Blackmans’ novels: her publishers at Random House Children's Publishers – publicist Harriet Venn, editor Natalie Doherty, publisher Annie Eaton and MD Philippa Dickinson as well as Malorie's literary agent, Hilary Delamere (who is also a trustee for the Siobhan Dowd Trust).

 

Harriet Venn, Natalie Doherty and Annie Eaton from Randhom House Children's Publishers
 

Harriet spoke about her love for the Noughts & Crosses series (as well as Harry Potter) and what the Laureateship might do for an author as an entity as distinct from their books. Natalie spoke about enjoying working with Malorie on the short story Callum as well as Noble Conflict, and about how Malorie is an author who is happy to work with an editor’s suggested changes as well as stick with some ideas of her own. A beaming (and tall!) Philippa arranged an interview for Little M, with author Anne Fine. I met Hilary prior to the announcement (not knowing who she was) and she tried to put us onto other scents when Little M and I put Malorie’s frame into the picture as a possible Laureate. Dark horse!

Coming up on the blog, you can look forward to Little M’s interviews with Malorie Blackman, previous Children’s Laureate Anne Fine plus some chats with a host of other authors and guests who were present. This may get bookishly monstrous.....

 

...with Patrick Ness!


And Annie Eaton insisted on taking a photo of Little M and I together (thanks, Annie!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Birthday Bash: Sponsored 24 hour Readathon

 

We Sat Down’s 24 Hour Readathon



We Sat Down's First Birthday Bash: 24 hour readathon

We Sat Down will be one year old this weekend. Instead of a giveaway, we've been inspired by Ms Adkins to hold a 24 hour Readathon to raise money for charity.

 

We're doing this with some of the other teens who've reviewed for We Sat Down. It will take place on the 23^rd March and it will start at 9 in the morning and finish at 9 the next morning.

Join us on Sat 23rd March on the blog, on Twitter or just by reading. We also hope that you’ll head on over to our sponsorship page.

Sponsor children in need

We are setting up a Justgiving page to raise money for a primary school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The money will go to Maranatha Care Children and they will by educational supplies or services for children who attend Protea Primary School. Little M selected this charity because Nanny Bee and Grandad Africa have gone and read to children there before. The primary school takes children who have been abused, homeless or traumatised and they give them an education.

Many of the children who attend Protea Primary have temporary residence at Siyakatala Youth Centre which is also supported by Maranatha. Please pop over to our Justgiving page to find out more about the charity and give a donation to make a difference to these children’s lives.

 

Video made by Little M: featuring books we've reviewed over the past year!

 

 Please donate!

 

with love from M & Little M

 

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.

 

A Little, ALOUD for children - M's Review

A Little, ALOUD for Children edited by Angela MacMillan

A Little, ALOUD for Children is an anthology of poems and stories to read aloud. It is aimed at children but really it is suitable for all ages.  Some pieces may be too difficult for young or less confident readers to read themselves but all of the pieces can be listened to by everybody. Each piece gives an estimated reading time and some are as short as 6 minutes while others are quite a bit longer.

Quiet, calm relaxation, a few chuckles and a sleeping dog.  That was the effect of the stories being read aloud to an audience in our house. But then came the poems! That was a much noisier affair. Legs and arms clambering about the room and hands rushing to grasp the book to be the next reader. Who can resist Shakespeare’s Witches Chant from Macbeth or Edward Lear’s The Jumblies?

A Little, ALOUD for Children - Angela MacMillan (ed)

The thing we find about reading aloud in our house is that it creates a lot of laughter and chatter.  We’re probably supposed to be talking about the literary merits of the writing or something like that….but - if we ever do - that only ever comes second or third to laughing and having fun.

In our house, nothing seems to be funnier than mum stumbling over ‘cumulonimbus’  (unless it’s dad stumbling over the made up words in Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky). And there’s always a long intake of breath while everyone waits to see what the next person is going to choose to read out loud. Will you groan or clap?

The selection in this anthology is a themed mix of poems and extracts (mostly from novels) and includes some contemporary pieces (like David Almond’s Skellig) as well as older classics like Dickens’ Great Expectations. We preferred some over others. I’m not a big fan of extracts because it frustrates me rather than tantalises me. But of course, not all readers will feel the same way as me.

We haven’t read the whole book but the absolute treasure so far in this anthology, for me, is Neil Gaiman’s Instructions: whatever you do, “Do not look back.” Little M has delightedly discovered Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery and Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic.

The royalties from the sale of this book go to The Reader Organisation, a charity that works to connect people with great literature – and each other.

Here is an article on the Booktrust website on why reading aloud with children is so special.

Publication details:

David Fickling Books, June 2012, paperback

This copy: received for review from the publishers

Take a look at the books we got #11

Welcome to our eleventh week of joining in with blogger memes like In My Mailbox (IMM) at The Story Siren  and the new British-based Letterbox Love. Here we all share the books that we recently bought, borrowed or received through the post.

This week it's been really sunny and a lot reading has been done outside.  so, we've taken the books to the grass!

Letterbox Love books on the grass!

We bought:

The One Dollar Horse by Lauren St John – what can we say.  The title just gives it away.  And of course, Little M is a die-hard Lauren St John fan too.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins – we’ve both read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and seen the movie – all this month. So, this one was inevitable….How great to be able to read the whole trilogy pretty much in one go!

We borrowed from our local public library:

Flip by Martyn Bedford - it's received lots of book award nominations and is about a boy who wakes up in somebody else's body.

Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace was a 2010 Costa winner. It's about schoolboys dealing with Zimbabwe's newly created independence in the 1980s.

We won:

Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed which takes on the heavy issue of forced marriages among teen girls. Thanks to Federation of Children's Book Groups and Puffin.

We received for review:

A Little, Aloud for Children edited by Angela Macmillan (from David Fickling Books - thanks!).  This is an anthology of extracts, poems and short pieces that are intended to be shared by reading aloud. It includes Neil Gaiman, Benjamin Zephaniah and Shakespeare. The idea is that all age groups can enjoy this book so in one sense, you could call it a real crossover title! Reading aloud is exactly what we’re planning on doing. It is being published in the UK on 7 June 2012 and all royalties will go to The Reader Organisation, a charity that works to connect both people and literature.

Hollow Pike by James Dawson (from Indigo/Fierce Fiction especially for Little M to review- thanks). It's about a teenage girl, witchcraft and the woods after dark.  Sounds scary to me. James Dawson has been nominated for the 2012 Queen of Teen award.

(the Letterbox Love logo was designed by Casey from Dark Readers)