Carnegie and Greenaway Medal Winners 2016 Announced!

The 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal, awarded for an outstanding book for children, has been won by Sarah Crossan for One, a free verse novel about conjoined twins.  Crossan has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal twice before, so her win this time is third time lucky!  

You can find this book and other titles on the Carnegie shortlist in the Discovery and War Memorial Libraries.

The Kate Greenaway Medal, awarded for an outstanding illustrated book for children, has been won by acclaimed author, illustrator and Children’sLaureate Chris Riddell for The Sleeper and the Spindle.  Written by Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell has created exquisitely beautiful illustrations for this dark and humorous re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. Chris Riddell becomes the first reigning Children’s Laureate to win and the first triple winner of either award.

You can find The Sleeper and the Spindle in the War Memorial Library.

Sarah Crossan and Chris Riddell each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library.  Both are also awarded the £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

YA Book Prize 2016 - winner announced!

The Booksellers YA Book Prize 2016 has been won by Sarah Crossan for her free verse novel One.  Crossan's novel tells the moving story of conjoined twins Grace and Tippi and their heartbreaking dilemma to stay together or be separated. Told from Grace's point of view, it allows the reader to see the twins as two separate people, rather than one.

One has also been shortlisted for this year's CILIP Carnegie Award, the winner of which will be announced this Monday, 20th June.

You can find One and other books by Sarah Crossan in the Discovery Library.  Sarah Crossan


Melvyn Burgess has been given YA Book Prize achievement award to mark 20 years since the publication of his novel Junk.  Winner of the 1997 Carnegie Award, Junk caused controversy because, written for teenagers, it tackled the difficult issues of drugs and prostitution.  Junk is available to borrow from the War Memorial Library.

EURO 2016 - Display

To celebrate the UEFA Euro 2016 competition, which takes place in France between June 10 and July 10, we have put together a display of great footballing reads for you to browse and borrow.  As well as footballing fiction, fantastic quick reads and footballing facts, we also have some brilliant books on France, the host nation!

Also, look out for the Dan Freedman Jamie Johnson series of books, about a boy, who is a talented footballer but has to move house and start a new school when his father leaves. These books have been made into a CBBC series being shown this June to tie in with the Euro 2016 Championships!

Click here to view the first three episodes of Jamie Johnson on BBC iplayer!

Euro 2016 - Factoids

The UEFA European Championship 2016 or Euro 2016 for short kicks off later today in France!  The competition is held every four years and Spain are the current defending champions, having won Euro 2008 and Euro 2012.

• 53 teams will be taking part in the qualifying competition.
• There will be 51 matches played – 20 more games than in 2012.
• 150 million spectators are expected to follow each game live.
• 13 out of the 16 teams that qualified in 2012 have qualified for Euro 2016, including England.  
• 5 teams have qualified for a Euro final for the first time ever – Albania, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Slovakia and Wales.
• Scotland were the only team from the UK not to qualify for the finals.  Former champions Greece, Netherlands and Denmark also failed to qualify. 

Year 7 Spelling Bee!

This half term Mr Coppola is launching an American style spelling bee competition for Year 7 students!

 There will be 20 words to learn each week, 10 in tutor time and another 10 for independent learning.  

You will learn how to prepare for a spelling bee, understand different strategies for spellings and learn and discuss new words. 

Each tutor group will run their own spelling bee to find the best two spellers in the group.  At the end of term there will be a spelling bee competition for the top spellers across the whole year group featuring some of the words that you have learnt plus others.  There will be a trophy, certificate and lots of applause for the winner! 

Creative Writing Competitions

Do you enjoy writing stories? Would you like to win some great prizes?  If the answer is yes, you may be interested in entering two national creative writing competitions for secondary school students. You need to be quick though, as the competitions close very soon!  If you are in Year 7 or Year 8 you may want to use some of the great tips and techniques that Joe Craig introduced you to when he visited our school.

The National Young Writers’ Awards are open to students aged 14 and under.  The theme is ‘The Mash-up’ and you are encouraged to write a 500 word story that is a ‘mash-up’ of two genres.  For example, a spaceman travelling back to Roman times or your favourite super hero taking on zombies.  The prize is a trip to Disneyland Paris for you and your family and £500 worth of books for the school.  The closing date is Tuesday 7^th June.  For more information and to submit your entry go to http://www.explorelearning.co.uk/youngwriters.

#Just Write has been launched by BIC, the pen people.  Open to Years 8, 9 and 10, you have to imagine living in a world without words and write about what that would be like in no more than 500 words. The competition closes on Monday 6^th June.  The winning entry will be published and receive a gift bag and ten other shortlisted finalists will win an individual gift pack.  For more information visit http://ministryofstories.org/bic-creative-writing-competition/.

TRS Students interview best-selling author, Joe Craig

The amazing Joe Craig visited The Ravensbourne School on 29 April to perform for our Year 7 and Year 8 students.

A specially selected group of Year 8 students, Lewis, Darion and Macey, were given the fantastic opportunity to meet and interview Joe! This is what they asked him:

If you could be one of your characters who would you be?

Tricky, but although Jimmy has the special powers, I would want to be Miss Bennett.

If you were to choose an actor to play a character who would it be and why?

• Ian Richardson – Prime Minister
• Saffron Burrows – Miss Bennett
• Jason Statham- Jimmy’s Dad
• Vinnie Jones - Paduk

What would you be if you weren't a writer?

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably still be a musician or work in advertising.

What do you see in cricket that you like?

It being a bonkers sport, really fun to play but I like it because everyone else finds it boring.

If you could rewrite one of the books, which one would it be and why?

Probably the first one.  One point would be when Jimmy is shot at and catches the bullet—that was probably going over the top!