Book Week at Coomera Rivers

Coomera Rivers State School launched itself into National Book Week today with all engines blazing. Enthusiastic teachers and volunteer parents transformed the recently opened school's i Centre (library) into a vibrant journey of countries around the globe in keeping with the One World, Many Stories theme.

A tour of the World

Each class put together fantastic displays depicting all corners of the world including the Arctic, Africa, Asia and Australia.

  

To promote a love of all things literary, a Galaxy Book Fair is also running all week courtesy of Scholastic Books. Kids can browse through the hundreds of titles on display and purchase their favourites as well as participate in some fantastic competitions.

 

Angela shows grade 4s how easy it is



 Last but by no means least, to celebrate the art of story telling and the magic of reading, local, well known and talented children's author and illustrator, Angela Sunde was on hand to guide students through the secrets of illustrating picture books. Work shops from 5 to 12 year olds covered the Visual Narrative component vital to creating spell binding picture books. She covered the power of the illustration in telling the story and how colour can influence and change the mood of the story.

Students were introduced to the finer arts of storyboarding, perspective and perhaps most interestingly, how to draw; how to hold one's pencil, how the sweep of one's arm makes all the difference.

I found the notion to draw what you see, not what you think you see, a fascinating one. Angela impressed upon the children that it's not how good or bad your first effort or sketch is, but more importantly how repeatedly you try to improve on that first sketch. In other words, practise makes perfect. As with all things in life. The kids were shown some of Angela's own utterly charming illustrations and 'dummy books' before setting out on creating illustrations for their own future tales. They were thoroughly entranced as she drew characters for their class rooms and, I suitably encouraged to make something more of my own stick figures.

  

In the coming days I will be offering the same students complimentary workshops on writing picture books and will endeavour to let you know how it all goes. Who knows, we may even unearth the next Mem Fox...



Tell us a story