BOOK WEEK

This year Guyra Central School kicked off their Book Week celebrations a little early. We were very lucky to have Sophie Masson, an author or over 70 books who once lived in Guyra, and National Children’s Laureate Ursula Dubosarsky come to speak to some of the students. Sophie spoke to years 7 and 8 about her journey to becoming a writer and her writing process. Ursula spoke to Stage 3 about her role and her goal to get every child to join their local library. She also told students about one of her characters “the word spy” and went through some fun word activities.

The most colourful part of Book Week is always the Parade. Sadly we couldn’t have any guests attend this year but students and staff still went all out with amazing costumes. Luckily we didn’t have a best dressed competition as it would have been impossible for anyone to choose just one winner from each class. A big thank you to everyone who helped students get prepared.

We ran a Guyra Central School Book of the Year competition this year with all students invited to submit a book they had made themselves. It had been my intention to have a single winner in each category but every judge expressed a wish for everyone to win.

The award winning authors are

                Early Stage One

• Hugh Kliendiest
• Elsie Post

Stage 0ne

• Wilson McElroy
• Rose Gordon
• Jessica Fletcher

Stage Two 

• Poppy Post
• Billy
• Elsa Kliendiest
• Sammy Dowden
• Lincoln Atkins

Stage Three

• Caitlin Montague
• Rose Kliendienst
• Summer Tibbs

The final book week activity was a colouring competition to find the budding illustrators among us. Another hard task but we managed to narrow it down to one winner per stage and a people’s choice award picked by secret judges. 

The winners were Charlotte Perrett, Tae Tae Torrens, Bethany Small, Stevie McElroy and Clee Beechey.

The Waterhole 

written by Rose Kliendienst (Stage 3)

The waterhole is a place where I feel safe, calm and relaxed. Well, it's where I used to, I still go there everyday since I live near a forrest not far from the waterhole.  The waterhole is a tourist sight and people love it. They don't love it so much anymore though because every day I go to it and see lots of plastic pollution in the water which I hate.  Although there is a bin next to it, people just seem to chuck stuff on the ground which I don't understand. How hard is it to put rubbish in the bin, seriously?Half the time no one is there so I jump in the water and try to find some rubbish which isn't that hard because it is everywhere.  Sometimes I see ducks and imagine how dirty that water is and how they are swimmimg in it.  I know I do sometimes, but they swim in it for life.  It is one of the things that keeps them alive but yet it is really just killing them.

A few days ago I went and saw a group of boys skimming rocks, except they were not rocks, they were big chunks of foil left over from their left over lunch.  I told them to stop but they replied " Make us little girl!" and I said " Someday I will, trust me" and then they just went over to the other side of the waterhole laughing and kept skimming foil. I tried to hold in my tears because I was alone and had no one to stand up to a group of teenage boys with me and I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it by myself but everyone in this town won't listen to m and understand.

Today I went back to the waterhole and started crying because this was the worst day for the waterhole and then a boy about my age came up to me and said "What's wrong with you?" to which I replied with, " Isn't it clear?" and then the little boy said " I understand, it is just horrible how people just pollute this place." I looked up and said "wait, what?" I was so shocked about what the boy said because I thought that no one in this town even cared.  He then said "I come here every Thursday and pick up rubbish." which coincidentally is the day that I have dancing and the only day that I don't come to the waterhole.  I then said " Why are you here on a Tuesday then?"  He then said " I just moved into town so my parents only let me go once a week, they decided to extend my time though. " I just looked at him because I thought he must be joking, but he wasn't.

Every Tuesday me and the boy (his name is Tim) go to the waterhole, dive in and pick up as much rubbish as we can.  We decided to make a poster for my school, the waterhole and the main street.  We made a few and photocopied them and started to put them around the town.  One of them said " If you really want to stop pollution, meet us at the waterhole  for meeting from 4.00pm - 5.30pm  on Tuesday-Friday."  Sadly the first day no-one showed up but as we put more posters up more people came, here are five of us now (me, Tim, Layla, Bonnie and Sally). We want to stop all pollution not just the waterhole but everywhere. We started bringing technology and researching stuff that we need to know about pollution.  We wrote a little copy of a book but never thought about publishing it.

We then decided to write it down on a computer, print it off and post it around town, two days later we got a call, the person said that they were a book publisher and got our number from the little information report that we wrote and that he would like us to write a more extended, more informative version and send it to him so that he could publish it, of course we were all very excited about it, Bonnie jumped up and screamed for joy. After Sally did, I then said "We need to do this and maybe we can ask him to put some pictures in for us, it took us 5 weeks to write a book, I am never on time on Thursday's though, but they all need me to publish it because I am the quickest typer and we need to get it done quickly. "  I then decided to quit dance because I am more focused on writing a book than I am on dancing.

A few days later we sent the publisher a copy of our improved book which was 478 pages long.  I was very proud of myself and so was everyone else, a few days later I looked in my mailbox and there it was waiting for me, a copy of our book.  I ran to the waterhole and saw Tim, I showed him the book and he was so happy.  I then read it, it was a very long and interesting book, then Bonny, Layla and Sally came running down to the waterhole, I showed them the book and you should have seen their faces, they were all so happy.  We got a call again, it was the publisher who said " Do you like that?" I then said " Of course, I love it!" The publisher said " I am going to make more copies and start selling them, is that okay?" We all said " Yes it is, Thank you so much!" He then hung up and before we knew it, they were selling a lot and we were getting lots of money which we didn't want all of, so we gave half to the publisher. 

We then went online and looked at the reviews, they were all positive, happy reviews about how they showed people ho didn't care about pollution but now they do. I was very excited that we have a bestselling book, we then started taking photo's of before the book was popular outside our town and after, you could really see the impact and  the difference but it was not enough to swim in yet. We then got another call except it was a different person, they said that our book was nominated for the 'Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year', I then said "Wow I can't believe it!" We needed to go on a plane to a different state, we all sat next to each other on the plane  and we couldn't stop smiling, we had to book into a motel room, the awards were two days away and we were all getting very excited.

The day finally came, we got dressed, did our hair and all looked very worries because most writers are adults, especially with non-fiction, we all found our seats and were very excited , we didn't know our book would get this far.  All the awards were presented , they  saved the non-fiction for last, they then said "The best non-fiction book goes to......", I was so scared and then I heard "WATER POLLUTION!" which was the name of our book! We all went up to the stage, got our awards and said a speech.  I was talking about how all this started with these posters and meeting and how thankful we were to get this very special award.  After we sat down, time went fast and it was all finished, we were all so excited about our book.  The next day we went home, we went straight to the waterhole and saw how clear it was, at the corner of my eye I saw a 'No polluting' sign, I was very happy that our book had made a change.  The next day I saw people swimming at the waterhole, it was free from pollution that people were able to swim again.  I just thought about ow this started and how dirty it was.  Everyone then said "It's her" and asked us to sign their book that they got of ours, of course we did and we were all very proud, our book has made a difference.