The Joint School’s Abingdon Carnegie Forum is an annual event, taking place in the Guildhall. Seventeen of OLA’s keen readers from year 7 & 8 joined pupils from the other five secondary schools to debate the shortlist, and vote for their Abingdon winner, of the Carnegie Medal, the highest accolade in the UK for children’s literature. Previous winners include legendary talents such as Arthur Ransome, C.S Lewis and Frank Cottrell Boyce.
As well the book reviews they had written earlier the mixed school groups produced a short drama about each of the shortlisted titles performed in front of a group of judges from the world of publishing, bookselling and education, and the Deputy Mayor of Abingdon. The judges included Kirsten Armstrong of Penguin Random House, who arranged delivery of 500 books to Abingdon, five new best sellers for each of the participants. This was kept as a surprise for the end of the afternoon, after prizes had been awarded for Best Book Review - OLA won four! Well done Bethan, Danann, Isabel and Naomi. Best Contributor in Group, went to Isabel again! Read all our reviews here.
The book ‘shadowing’ is part of a national scheme, now its 21st year, involving over 90,000 young people across the world. In Abingdon, a link has been forged with Oxford Brookes and Oxford Universities, making use of future English teachers who have been completing their PGCE qualification, who helped facilitate the group work. The value of this joint schools’ event is recognised by Abingdon Town Council who have awarded the Joint School’s Forum a grant, which covers the hire of the venue.
OLA was hosting this year’s Forum. This is one of my favourite days of the year, where we see keen readers coming together. They have been insightful, articulate and passionate about their choices. Surely, where reading is involved everyone is a winner. And how delighted we were to have this affirmed by the generous gifts from Penguin Random House.
Naomi said, “ It was a good day and worked well. It was also really nice that we got 5 books! It was really enjoyable and fun, and it was good that we got to eat lunch in the park.”
Which book won the Abingdon vote? It was More Than This by Patrick Ness. The Forum never agrees with the official Judges, and it was no different this year. The winner announced on Monday at the British Library was Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman.
What do our ‘shadowers’ think of the result ? “ Cuckoo Song should have won the Medal because it was such a good book!” “ I think Buffalo Soldier deserved to win, but there were many other amazing books such as Cuckoo Son, Tinder and More Than This.” Judge for yourselves by reading the books; that’s what we did!
P.S. With great forward planning Tanya Landman was already booked to come as our Joint Schools' Author, visiting in March 2016.
