CBCA Book Week is always a highlight on our school calendar, with our 2024 edition being full of fun activities and a celebration of all things Books!

Reading is Magic

This years theme was Reading is Magic. Students reflected on the magical places that books can take us, and the way that stories can explore imaginative themes and characters. A well written story can take place at any time in any place! Whether that be a modern classroom, an ancient castle of a futuristic city. Students shared some of their favourite books, and what makes them magical.

Special Guests!

Students were visited by two accomplished authors and illustrators this year, who had a great time drawing and sharing! Please see their profiles below!

Nicky Johnston is an award-winning author and illustrator of over thirty books for children including 2023 Shortlisted book Jørn’s Magnificent Imagination, 2022 Honour book Amira’s Suitcase and 2022 Speech Pathology book of the Year The Incredibly Busy Mind of Bowen Batholomew Crisp. Nicky’s illustration style is often described as whimsical, playful, narrative, emotive and colourful.

Dean Rankine is a Ledger and Stanley Award winning comic book artist and writer best known for his work on Simpsons Comics,

and the writer/illustrator on the book series –

Death Metal Emo Elves. He likes

watching cat videos.

Nicky working with our junior classes and Dean with our middle and senior, gave all of our students a chance to listen about the publishing process and how ideas can be translated onto a page! Both Nicky and Dean helped students design art work of their own in a fun and creative way, and students walked away from these enjoyable sessions with examples of images of their own. We thank Nicky and Dean for spending some time with us and being so warm and encouraging of our students.

Time to be Creative!

Book Week is a fantastic time to look at the creativity of published authors and illustrators, but also our wonderful students! We ran three Book Week competitions which gave students a chance to write, draw and design! Prizes will be handed out for these competitions at our next assembly! As you can imagine there were so many fantastic entries! Our competitions were as follows:

Design a Smoothie: Students were tasked with drawing and labelling a smoothie, only with the grossest ingredients possible!

Finish the Comic: Students were required to finish a scene between a chef and his tomato, drawing and imagining what might happen next!

Introduce the Pig: Students were presented with a pig in a suit, needing to explain why he was dressed this way, but also a bit of backstory about his life!

Please enjoy just a sample of our entries below! We look forward to handing out certificates and prizes at assembly next week!

A Dressy Finish!

Friday was the perfect end to a busy Book Week with our costume parade. As always students and parents went all out and created and showed bright costumes full of flair. It was so much fun as wizards, super-villains, crayons, detectives, sports stars, astronauts, cats in hats and princesses paraded around! Please enjoy some of our best snaps below!

What a week!

CBCA Book Week is celebrating 80 years since its beginning in 2025, which we are sure will be extra special! Plenty of time to start thinking about the next costume!

Happy reading everyone!

Tim O'Mahoney

English Leader

tomahoney@santglen.catholic.edu.au

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