Young City Reads, our ‘Big Read’ for children across Brighton and Hove is back for 2016!
On 19th January, it was revealed that Danny Wallace’s Hamish and the Worldstoppers will be this year’s book. Fantastically illustarated by Jamie Littler, the tale is set in the town of Starkley and how Hamish’s very boring, very plain life gets turned upside down when one morning, time stops. Like, literally, stops. Birds are frozen in the air, planes in the sky and every single person in the world, except for Hamish! And it’s being caused by The WorldStoppers and their terrifying friends The Terribles! They have a PLAN! They want to take our world for their own . . . Can Hamish stop them? Only time will tell!
The project is being brought to schools by Collected Works CIC and Brighton Festival – which celebrates its 50th birthday in 2016 – The project itself is very simple: One book, one city, a thousand conversations.
After the roaring success of last year’s project with William Sutcliffe’s ‘Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom’ where 1,500 pupils across Sussex took part, Sutcliffe took to Twitter this week to ‘pass on his crown’ and say “Congratulations @dannywallace @jamieillustrate. @youngcityreads is the Booker prize of mucking about in front of infants”
Last year’s big event at the Theatre Royal, Brighton consisted of circus performers, live illustration by David Tazzyman, readings, jokes, giggles and plenty of smiles (no lions or elephants though- they were on holiday). It was a beautiful, lively afternoon of pure joy and a great celebration of Sutcliffe’s book. You can see photo’s of the event here.
If you are a teacher if you’re a teacher, or you know a great teacher who is interested in taking part, then you just need to visit our Young City Reads page and sign up for FREE.
Once signed up, for ten weeks, you’ll receive a weekly email from us at YCR HQ that’s jam packed with activities, jokes and interesting information about the book.
The project itself is to simply get children reading! It is aimed to encourage all literary levels to engage and discuss the themes and ideas that are raised throughout the book and the enthuse and inspire even the most reluctant reader. Julie Forsyth, from West Blatchington Primary school summed the project up perfectly “Young City Reads promotes a love of books and enthuses the children to pick up a book and become immersed in the story and the characters.”
So there we have it, we hope to see you very soon and to hear from you sooner! This year is going to be fantastic (really, it is), all we need to do is make sure Danny and Jamie behave themselves…
No comments yet.