Book Week 

Why a St George's Book Week is made of magic 

For me, the magic of Book Week manifests in the way my emotions shift over the course of the journey. Six weeks out, when I’m negotiating with agents and directors, it feels like it was all a bad idea; then it starts to fall into place and, before I know it, the office is populated with Minions, directors are turning up to speak to students and everything has fallen into place. 

At the risk of sounding like a notorious world leader, this year’s Book Week was possibly the best celebration ever. The English and Languages Department and the Library staff ran eight competitions, between them, including: flash fiction competitions, designing your reading space, create the cover page,  match the teacher to the blurb, reconstruct the shredded novel, display your favourite quote . . . We invited a director in to discuss Macbeth, illustrators in to discuss Shaun Tan, writers in to create fantasy characters, ATAR workshop leaders to workshop composition and a sports journalist to discuss the ins and outs of podcasting. It was, suffice to say, a busy week, even by St George’s standards.

In the middle of this, we took groups to Planet Books for “Novels and Ice Cream”, and our Year 12 ATAR students to Curtin University for the ATAR English and Literature conference. Our annual dress parade was besieged by a veritable horde of Heroes and Villains. We even managed to sneak in the final round of our WA Debating League season, winning two and losing one. It was a week engulfed in English.

I would like to thank the staff in the Laurence Library for their inventive energy and their generous support. Also, the Mathematics, Science and HASS Heads of Learning Areas - Miss Hewitt, Mr Heath and Mr Maddess - for generously offering to give up their first 10 minutes of every lesson that week for Wider Reading. I would like to thank the Faculty and Leadership team for being willing to don costumes and to reveal their villainous and their heroic alter egos too. Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful team for the gusto that they brought not only to the week but to all the weeks that led to Book Week.

The theme for this year’s 80th anniversary of national Book Week was “Book your Adventure”. I found myself reflecting on this when I sent in my quote to Abbey Tobin’s quote wall - a quote from Don Di Lillo’s Underworld: “Sometimes I see something so moving I know I'm not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave.” 

As I submitted it, I was struck by the way that novels don’t just take you places, they also help you to see the world in different ways. We are often a little different simply because of the novels we have read.

Happy reading in the holidays everyone!

Mr Damien Kerrigan

Head of Learning Area - English and Languages