Read4Barnet
Read4Barnet came together out of a collaboration between Barnet Secondary School Librarians at Copthall School, Queen Elizabeth’s School, Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School and Wren Academy. The event is held annually in June and Wren Academy is generally the hosting school.
The initiative aims to encourage teenagers to read and engage with newly published fiction. Each year, between 6 and 8 recently published titles are selected and the list is circulated to all the secondary schools in the Borough. There are usually 8 or 9 participating schools so the day involves about 200 students.
In advance the students read and review the books in preparation and these reviews are posted on the Read4Banet website (see links below). An independent judge (usually a Librarian from a non-participating Barnet school) then chooses the best review for each book. Working together as a group of schools means we can also invite 4 authors to speak about their book(s), and writing. There is also an author panel which allows students to ask questions and students also have the chance to vote for the Read4Barnet best book.
There is a bookshop giving students the opportunity to purchase the shortlisted books and others written by the shortlisted authors and squeezed into a busy day is also time for book signings (and a quick chat/photo opportunity) with the authors. Sometimes there is also a quiz based on the books.
The day finishes with an award ceremony. Firstly the winning author is presented with the Read4Barnet Best author award and then the students who wrote the best reviews are presented with Book Tokens. There are also runners up prizes of signed books.
Authors who have taken part in Read4Barnet include Patrice Lawrence, Karen Gregory, Non Pratt, Anthony McGowan, Lisa Williamson, Nat Luurtsema, Katherine Webber, Richard Kurti, and Siobhan Curham (to name just a few.)
https://read4barnetwebsite.wordpress.com/ (current website)
https://read4barnet.wordpress.com/ (archive)
Nicky Raddon nicky.raddon@wrenacademy.org
