Reflecting upon Children’s Book Weeks of the past – and this one
25 Aug, 2021 | What's happening in my writing life
Book Week this year, as it was last, has been a juggling act. Bookings have been made, cancelled, postponed, reinstated and then others changed to online.
The bulk of my bookings have been pushed through to Term 4, but today I did four presentations to four groups of Year ¾ girls. Despite the disappointment of me not visiting their school, we did have a good time, with digital hearts and hands flying across the screen and lovely comments appearing in the side bar of my MS Teams Presentation.
The other positive was that it gave me an opportunity to get out of my tracksuit and exercise pants and get dressed up, do my hair and put on make-up. What a thrill!
The wonderful librarian has just sent through these lovely comments:
‘Thank you so much for sharing your time, preparation, and love of writing with our students today. It was so lovely for them to hear about your amazing writing, and see their beautiful comments in the chat.
‘I used to not like reading but you inspired me to read more’ Maddie
‘You are just so good at writing books’ Maddie A.
‘I think after you read that book I’m starting getting more interested in reading books. And by books, I mean your books’ – Nan C.
‘Corinne you are such a good descriptive speaker and writer’ Molly D.
It is just so important to engage this age group with stories. Your wonderful picture books, about real people, just confirm how important it is for this age group to keep reading picture books and that we don’t need to be ‘suddenly’ reading novels when we get to year 3. Thank you for this affirmation!’
Today made me reflect on other Book Weeks, where we, the creators of children’s books, race from school to school, suburb to suburb, often into lovely country towns and sometimes, interstate.
I thought about the amount of driving we do, asking ourselves ‘Will we get there on time?’ – ‘Where do we park?’ – and ‘Where’s the library.’ Even with the most perfect of plans, things can go belly up.
What I did miss a bit today was the cry of students, screaming out in high pitches voices ‘HELLO CORINNE FENTON’ as I walk across the quadrangle. Hopefully those bookings in Term 4 will happen and that better still, Book Week 2022 will be a normal face-to-face experience for everyone.
Fingers and toes crossed.
