Published April 1, 2022
Every year, several schools in the Salisbury area work together to run the Salisbury Schools’ Book Awards. Librarians from each of the schools shortlist a total of six books, and a group of pupils from each school reads them all and votes for their favourite. The schools then take it in turns to host a special event to announce the winner of this year’s award.
Here was our shortlist of books for this year’s award…
This year, we had the pleasure of hosting the awards here at St Joseph’s, led by Miss Clark and Mrs Fenwick. We were thrilled to organise a visit from one of our shortlisted authors, Kirsty Applebaum!
Kirsty gave an inspiring talk to all of our Year 7 pupils, plus groups of pupils and librarians from the other participating schools. She talked about how her childhood inspired her books and how she came up with the idea for her book Troofriend. Everyone then worked together to create a collaborative (wonderfully imaginative!) sci-fi story.
After the talk, Kirsty worked with our Year 7 English High Achievers class on a special writing workshop. The pupils created a brand new character following a series of prompts from Kirsty, and then developed a story about them. The ideas the pupils had were incredible – we definitely have some talented budding authors!
Thank you so much to Kirsty Applebaum for making it such a memorable day for us, our pupils, and the other visiting schools! You can find out more about Kirsty and her books on her website.