Nestlé Children’s Book Prize 2007

In September, the children of J1N submitted entries to this annual competition which encourages young readers to extend their love of books, first by entering a piece of their own writing and then by reading three short-listed novels and helping to choose the overall winning title.

This year’s written task in the 9-11 category was to ‘Describe a hiding place for precious treasure’.  Each child wrote a short poem and sketched a map guiding the reader to where their treasure might be found.  The standard of entries was high and we were very pleased indeed when we received the news that the class had done extremely well and won through this first round.

J1N Book Prize		Poring Over the Selected Books

In October, three brand new novels arrived!

November was a frenetic reading marathon for J1N.  Copies of the three contenders for the Nestle Children’s Book Prize eventually arrived giving us just three weeks in which to read, judge and complete a project on our favourite book.  Rising to the challenge, and reading into the small hours, ten pupils completed all three novels in this short time, while every member of the class read the novel that quickly emerged as our front runner – ‘Shadow Forest’ by Matt Haig.

“No matter how old you are, or whether you’re a boy or a girl you just won’t be able to put it down.”  (Corrie)

“It’s funny, gruesome and magical – all at the same time.”  (Angus)

With a convincing 19 votes we nominated ‘Shadow Forest’ to be the winner and set out to demonstrate why it was our favourite by means of a ‘Board Game’.  In the book, Samuel ventures into a mysterious forest to rescue his sister Martha from the evil “Changemaker”.  In our board game, with a nod to “Snakes and Ladders”, each player moves his character through the board forest encountering mystical creatures that may knock them back a few places or advance them, until they rescue Martha and escape to safety.

On December 16th we heard the news that, although we had not been chosen to be presented with a prize at the Awards Ceremony in London, our favourite book, ‘Shadow Forest’, had won the Nestle Children’s Book Prize for 2007.

It’s a great book and we recommend you read it; or pop in to J1N to play ‘Shadow Forest – the Board Game!’

Junior School
The Support for Learning Department