2 March 2022
Livvy, Year 9
Book Club members had a great time at the Southern Schools Book Award ceremony on Friday 25 February, hosted by Hurstpierpoint College, West Sussex. The event was for everyone who had taken part in the programme over the last few months, reading and debating the five shortlisted books and voting for our favourite.
It was an incredible evening, with all the authors discussing their books, author Bex Hogan compèring and illustrator Chris Riddell doing amazing drawings live on a big screen, distracting some of the authors from what they were saying!
When it came down to the awards, we all had an idea of who was going to be the winner and runner up, but no clue about which way round. Everyone was so pleased, though, that the winner was Vincent Ralph for his book “Lock the Doors”. Vincent’s heartfelt talk had been about wanting to portray a boy who had anxiety issues and OCD, like Vincent does, as he wanted more representation of people like him in books.
After the ceremony we were able to get our books signed by the authors and chat with them. It was a great evening and we were very happy to see Vincent Ralph win as his book was our favourite.
Thank you to Ms Owens for organising the evening and to Mr Cocksedge for driving us there and back.