2012/13 was our big year for shadowing the Carnegie, from longlist through to winners. During that time, we met up (virtually) with Anna James, the fingers and brains behind #tweetckg, CILIP Carnegie’s first twitter shadowing group. Generationally, Anna is somewhere inbetween Little M and I, and there are multiple convergences in our reading tastes, which is fantastic (you’ll know our tastes from this blog and Anna is over at A Case For Books).
Anna
works “in a large secondary school and sixth form inbetween Solihull and
Coventry. We have just over 1000 students in main school and around 250 in
sixth form. I'm the only librarian in school and am based in the main library
although do as much as I can with sixth form.”
WSD: You
ran a huge Midwinterblood project. What other sorts of things are you involved
in?
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| Anna's schedule for the CILIP Carnegie 2013 online reading group #tweetckg |
Anna: “I
try to get involved with as many different things as possible. The
Midwinterblood project came about because my line manager had a Year 8 class
once a fortnight and was keen to try something different with them and asked me
if I had any ideas. I had just finished Midwinterblood and thought it would be
perfect to do some interesting lessons around so we created a set of five
lessons full of students choosing activities, lots of group work and
independent exploration and open creative writing. We also got involved with
Drama and Media for some cross-curricular lessons. We also had Marcus Sedgwick
(the author) come into school for the last lesson which was brilliant.
The
longer I'm here the more teachers have been coming to me and we've been working
together to do exciting things, which is wonderful. My pet project has to be
our Man Booker shadowing group though. I started this in autumn 2011 as a way
to try and engage our sixth formers with exciting contemporary literature and
it's been brilliant to see students who just sign up to put it on their UCAS
form really get involved and find books that they love. We then take them down
to the event in London to meet the authors and it's wonderful seeing them so
excited to meet them and get their books signed.”
WSD: What
is your library space like and what sort of atmosphere/experience do you try to
create with it?
Anna: “I
inherited a very drab and neglected space, lots of big metal bookcases, over 60
computers and no reading area. It was mainly used as a computer classroom. Over
the years we have reclaimed the space, redecorated and created two comfy reading
areas. It's now used regularly for research and reading lessons and is packed
at lunchtimes.”
WSD: What
do you like most about the CILIP Carnegie awards?
Anna: “I
love Carnegie! It's such a wonderful way to introduce students to a real
variety of fiction. The shortlist always provokes brilliant discussions,
whether we loved or hated the books - we're rarely indifferent to them. It's a
wonderful way for our Book Club to bond and get to know each other as well.
Taking my students to the ceremony last year and this year have been real
highlights of working here.”
WSD: Any
top recommended 'adult' fiction reads for 13 or 14 year olds?
Anna: “I
end up recommending quite a lot of adult fiction to my keen readers. One of my
best readers, who is just finishing Year 9, has been reading Kazuo Ishiguro,
Donna Tartt and Kate Atkinson recently! Adult books I would recommend to keen
teen readers would be The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Radleys by Matt
Haig and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon to name just a few.”
WSD: Anything
you're burning to tell us?
Anna: “Just
that for all the difficulties and stresses of working in a school library, I
love it. I feel very privileged to have a job working to inspire children to
read. My students are wonderful and I don't think I'll ever get old of that
feeling of a child returning a book you've recommended that they absolutely
loved.”
Thanks Anna, and we're looking forward to #tweetckg 2014 - or maybe even a Man Booker shadowing.
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