My Favourite Novel, by Mr. Wilson. Head Teacher

My Favourite Novel

by Mr. Wilson. Head Teacher

It is almost impossible for me to choose my favourite novel but I suppose I would say it was Middlemarch by George Eliot. She has sympathy for every character, no matter how unpleasant they may seem. I love the way that she creates a whole society of characters, from rich to poor, and depicts the little dramas of peoples' lives. And I love the character of Dorothea, the heroine, who is one of the most loveable, humble and gracious people to be found in the pages of a novel.

My Favourite Book by Jacqueline Wilson

You probably know who Jacqueline Wilson is, in fact you have probably read one of her books yourself. But do you know what her favourite novel is?

Jacqueline's favourite book is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It's a  heart-warming tale about the endearing March sisters set in the USA and if you love a good story then look no further. Times are hard for the March sisters - their father's away at war and the family is short of money - but these girls don't dwell on such matters and always look on the bright side - but what fate holds in store for the girls, only time will tell.

What Jacqueline Wilson says of one of her all-time favourite books:
'I read this wonderful story of four 19th century American sisters over and over again, particularly identifying with Jo, the tomboy sister who is desperate to be a writer.'

Little Women in a nutshell:
Four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth & Amy – at home with mother.  Father away at war.  Short of money but always look on the bright side. Amy likes boy next door but he loves Jo, although eventually marries Amy. Beth gets scarlet fever – they thinkshe’s better but in the end she dies. Boo Hoo!

A Good Bit from a Great Book #2

From
Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

Links

Read a review of Johnny and the Dead which says: 'It is as hilarious as nothing I can describe in words, reading this book I was laughing so hard that the house shook.'

Watch a very funny TV version of the book

Johnny never knew for certain why he started seeing the dead. The Alderman said it was probably because he was too lazy not to. Most people’s minds don’t let them see things that might upset them, he said. The Alderman said he should know if anyone did, because he’d spent his whole life (1822–1906) not seeing things.

Wobbler Johnson, who was technically Johnny’s best friend, said it was because he was mental. But Yo-less, who read medical books, said it was probably because he couldn’t focus his mind like normal people. Normal people just ignored almost everything that was going on around them, so that they could concentrate on important things like, well, getting up, going to the lavatory and getting on with their lives. Whereas Johnny just opened his eyes in the morning and the whole universe hit him in the face. Wobbler said this sounded like ‘mental’ to him. Whatever it was called, what it meant was this. Johnny saw things other people didn’t. Like the dead people hanging around in the cemetery.

The Alderman – at least, the old Alderman – was a bit snobby about most of the rest of the dead, even about Mr Vicenti, who had a huge black marble grave with angels and a photograph of Mr Vicenti (1897-1958) looking not at all dead behind a little window. The Alderman said Mr Vicenti had been a Capo de Monte in the Mafia. Mr Vicenti told Johnny that, on the contrary, he had spent his entire life being a wholesale novelty salesman, amateur escapologist and children’s entertainer, which in a number of important respects was as exactly like not being in the Mafia as it was possible to get.

But all this was later. After he’d got to know the dead a lot better. After the raising of the ghost of the Ford Capri. Johnny really discovered the cemetery after he’d started living at Grandad’s. This was Phase Three of Trying Times, after the shouting, which had been bad, and the Being Sensible About Things (which had been worse; people are better at shouting). Now his dad was getting a new job somewhere on the other side of the country. There was a vague feeling that it might all work out, now that people had stopped trying to be sensible. On the whole, he tried not to think about it.

He’d started using the path along the canal instead of going home on the bus, and found that if you climbed over the place where the wall had fallen down, and then went around behind the crematorium, you could cut off half the journey.

The graves went right up to the canal’s edge. It was one of those old cemeteries you got owls and foxes in and sometimes, in the Sunday papers, people going on about Our Victorian Heritage, although they didn’t go on about this one because it was the wrong kind of heritage, being too far from London.
Wobbler said it was spooky and sometimes went home the long way, but Johnny was disappointed that it wasn’t spookier. Once you sort of put out of your mind what it was – once you forgot about all the skeletons underground, grinning away in the dark – it was quite friendly. Birds sang. All the traffic sounded a long way off. It was peaceful.

A Good Bit From a Great Book #1

From
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
by Mark Haddon

Mother died 2 years ago.

I came home from school one day and no one answered the door, so I went and found the secret key that we keep under a flowerpot behind the kitchen door. I let myself into the house and carried on making the Airfix Sherman Tank model I was building.

An hour and a half later Father came home from work. He runs a business and he does heating maintenance and boiler repair with a man called Rhodri who is his employee. He knocked on the door of my room and opened it and asked whether I had seen Mother.

I said that I hadn't seen her and he went downstairs and started making some phone calls. I did not hear what he said.Then he came up to my room and said he had to go out for a while and he wasn't sure how long he would be. He said that if I needed anything I should call him on his mobile phone.

He was away for 2 1/2 hours. When he came back I went downstairs. He was sitting in the kitchen staring out of the back window down the garden to the pond and the corrugated iron fence and the top of the tower of the church on Manstead Street which looks like a castle because it is Norman.

Father said, 'I'm afraid you won't be seeing your mother for a while.'

He didn't look at me when he said this. He kept on looking through the window.
Usually people look at you when they're talking to you. I know that they're working out what I'm thinking, but I can't tell what they're thinking. It is like being in a room with a one-way mirror in a spy film. But this was nice, having Father speak to me but not look at me.
I said, 'Why not?'

He waited for a very long time, then he said, 'Your mother has had to go into hospital.'
'Can we visit her?' I asked, because I like hospitals. I like the uniforms and the machines.
Father said, 'No.'
I said, 'Why can't we?'
And he said, 'She needs rest. She needs to be on her own.'
I asked, 'Is it a psychiatric hospital?'
And Father said, 'No. It's an ordinary hospital. She has a problem... a problem with her heart.'
I said, 'We will need to take food to her,' because I knew that food in hospital was not very good.  David from school, he went into hospital to have an operation on his leg to make his calf muscle longer so that he could walk better. And he hated the food, so his mother used to take meals in every day.
 
Father waited for a long time again and said, 'I'll take some in to her during the day when you're at school and I'll give it to the doctors and they can give it to your mum, OK?'
I said, 'But you can't cook.'
Father put his hands over his face and said, 'Christopher. Look. I'll buy some ready-made stuff from Marks and Spencer's and take those in. She likes those.'

I said I would make her a Get Well card, because that is what you do for people when they are in hospital. Father said he would take it in the next day.

A Read A Day

We all know that we need five fruit and vegetables a day to keep a healthy body, but did you know that people now think we need to make sure we read every day in order to keep our minds healthy.

That is the purpose if the "A Read A Day" campaign lauched by letsgetreading.com which aims to get everybody reading something every single day.

It is also promoting the GoBook- an eReader specifically designed with young people in mind. Not only that but the GoBook system includes hundreds of free ebooks, so if you were looking to buy an eReader, this may be the one to look out for. More info on GoBook and the free ebooks can be found here

Staff Picks- Books on Film

There have been lots of books that have later been made into films.

What are your favourite films that were originally books? Tell us in the comment section below.

Here are a few staff favourites- if you click on the links you can see some YouTube clips as well as learning a bit more about the authors.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf

Harry Potter by J.K Rowling

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

One Day by David Nicholls

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum

For more films that started life as books go to goodreads.com



My Favourite Novel by Ms. McKernan, SLT

My Favourite Novel

By Ms. McKernan, SLT

My favourite book is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman which is part of a trilogy.  I love the sense of adventure and the main character, Lyra, who is really tough and feisty.  She goes looking for a missing friend and ends up in all sorts of situations including finding doorways into a parallel universe, very exciting!

To see what other people have thought about this novel, go to the Reading Matters website.

My Favourite Novel by Mrs. Sharma, SLT

My Favourite Novel

By Mrs. Sharma, SLT

My favourite book is A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, this is because it made me smile and also made me feel sad whilst I was reading it.  It taught me a lot about history and about how people live and cope with a lot of hardship.

Here is the Amazon link to this novel and here is a video that tells you more about it. 

My Favourite Childhood Novel by Ms. Kaltak, SLT

My Favourite Childhood Novel

By Ms. Kaltak, SLT

My favourite Childhood book is Treasure Island by R L Stevenson,  because of the adventure and drama that unfolds throughout the novel which keeps the reader intrigued and captivated with exciting characters. One of my many favourite quotes from the book is:

“-I am not sure whether he's sane.
-If there's any doubt about the matter, he is.”

You can download Treasure Island onto your Kindle or E-Reader for free here and here is a really good film version that is well worth a watch.

My Favourite Novel by Mrs. Bourne, English Department

My Favourite Novel

By Mrs. Bourne, English Department

My favourite novel is, without a doubt, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

I first read this book when I was 15 and in year 10 at secondary school because it was one of our GCSE books. I immediately fell in love with the characters: Jane was so brave even though she had been through such a tough time as a child and I knew that there was more to Mr. Rochester than met the eye….

You can download Jane Eyre onto your Kindle or E-Reader for free here and you can watch the whole film version on YouTube.

The Competition Starts Here!

For the chance to win WH Smiths vouchers and a beautiful, cloth-bound classic novel there is a book-based treasure hunt going on around our school this fortnight.

You will find questions stuck up all over the school- from the Maths department to the main dining hall and everywhere else in between- and all you have to do is spot them collect the answers to all twelve questions.

Once you have done that you should send your answers to lisreadingfortnight@gmail.com with your name and form in the subject line. All entries should be recieved by midnight on Sunday May 13th 2013.

Here are a few clues about where the questions are hiding to get you started, and don't forget to check with your teachers, librarians and back here on our blog, as well as by following us on Twitter for extra clues.

Let's all get in the mood with a little song

Many years ago there were a band that some of you might have heard of called The Beatles and they sang a song called Paperback Writer which is not only a great song, but fits in nicely with the theme of reading for our Reading Fortnight at Little Ilford School.

Enjoy the song!

Welcome to the Little Ilford School Reading Fortnight blog.

Fabulous prizes to be won and fun to be had. All in the name of reading!

Follow us on Twitter for updates and more information