Carnegie Reading Group Outing

This term, a team of ten of our most committed and voracious Lower School readers have taken on the mammoth task of reading the Carnegie Medal shortlist. The Carnegie Medal is amongst the most prestigious awards for children’s literature in the UK, with previous recipients including Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett and C.S. Lewis. The award, judged by children’s librarians across the UK, is presented to an outstanding book written in the English language, and hopes to champion librarians to inspire and empower the next generation to create a better world through books and reading. The Shadowers’ Choice Award is selected by the teams of pupils who take on the task of reading and discussing the shortlist. After reading an impressive six of eight books (the two remaining were aimed at older readers), our team deliberated the various merits of the different texts, which stretched and challenged their reading and critical abilities.

The grand finale of all of this reading was a team trip to Dulwich College to meet with the Shadowing teams from the college itself, JAGS and Ibstock Place. After some initial trepidation about being split into groups with pupils from the other schools, our Alleyn’s pupils embraced the opportunity to make new friends and work together on the challenging book quiz. Congratulations to Lucy and Charles on being part of the winning team! Pupils were also invited to enter a competition to redesign the cover of one of the short listed books – a big well done to Juno on her win with her beautiful redesign of the book that would ultimately win both the Shadowers’ Choice and Carnegie Medals, Katya Balen’s October, October. Of course, a big well done to all of our Shadower’s for doing so much reading and being excellent representatives of Alleyn’s values on our trip! Thanks must also go to Mrs Danaher, for stepping in at the last minute to help out in light of staff absences.

Any pupils interested in reading more for pleasure are more than welcome to join any of our book clubs. Please do chat to Mrs O’Donnell, Ms Jasiewicz or Miss White if you want to know more.

Written by Library Assistant, Miss White