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Congratulations to Tom (7IXA) for winning the Library’s Y7 World Book Day Short Story Competition! “I’m shocked”, said Tom, “because I never thought I’d win!” As part of its virtual World Book Day and Whitmore Year of Reading celebrations, the Library launched a competition to encourage Whitmore’s budding writers. We asked Y7 students to take their favourite book character and put them in a completely different setting. So, what if Professor Snape worked in a pet shop or Gangsta Granny went to the moon?
Tom wrote a fantastic story called The Perfect Creation? based on characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel. “I enjoyed the competition,” said Tom. “I’ve learned stories can be anything.” And he impressed our guest judge, Sarah Naughton, “I loved this. The tone of voice was great, dry, chatty and funny, in the best traditions of darkly comedic anti-hero narrators.” Sarah called Tom, “A great comedy writer in the making.”
Tom wins a £30 Amazon Gift Card and a signed copy of The Blood List, written by Sarah Naughton. Congratulations also go to Nivedita (7SBY) and Eni (7IXA) who were Second Place Runners Up, and Mathusan (7AAY), Ayesha (7SBY) and Thiana (7IXA) in Third Place. Our guest judge was so impressed with the quality of our Y7 students’ entries that she added Commended Prizes, which went to Dilan (7MAK), Keshiha (7HRB) and Bhathanaa (7DAL). Sarah presented all the winners with signed copies of her novel The Blood List. Sarah is a popular author who also wrote The Hanged Man Rises, and both books are available on our Sora digital library app – just log in with your school username and login.
We had some very creative entries. Instead of Wonderland, Eni (7IXA) sent Alice down a rabbit hole to New York and Ilyas (7MAK) made Alex Rider Prime Minister. Every student who entered the competition received feedback from Sarah Naughton. “I loved judging the Short Story Competition,” she said. “The stories were so imaginative and vibrant. Some were laugh-out-loud funny and others displayed the kind of descriptive language any published author would be proud of. If these are anything to go by there are definitely some budding authors among the Whitmore students.”
We’re very proud of all the Y7s who worked so hard on their stories. Well done!