World Book Night 2016
On 21st April, Gimnazija Vič Book Club hosted our annual event for World Book Night, the international celebration of books and reading. Our own students and mentors were thrilled to be joined by members of book clubs from several local primary schools for this important part of our English department’s calendar.
Through readings, dramatic performances, and music from our school choir, the audience got to find out about some of the major anniversaries connected to culture and literature which are being marked through this year. Of course, the main focus was the work of William Shakespeare, where we joined in with the many projects and events going on around the world to celebrate his life on the 400th anniversary of his death. Other authors remembered through our presentation included Roald Dahl and Beatrix Potter, and historic anniversaries included such occasions as the establishment of an independent Ireland.
The event included the prize-giving ceremony for our creative writing competition. Through the school year, students from both primary and secondary schools worked on micro-stories (stories of no more than 100 words) based on a selection of phrases taken from the works of Shakespeare. The standard of writing was incredibly high this year but a group of international readers and writers worked hard to come up with a shortlist of pieces which were included in a special publication on the day. From this collection, seven prizes were awarded to primary school pupils and eight went to those from the secondary level.
With the chance to discuss their writing and to find out about the judging process, many of the young writers were inspired to continue with their work and to take part in other such schemes and competitions in the future. The event concluded with the promise for many projects and occasions for cooperation among our different schools through the next school year.