This week hundreds of thousands of children across Australia are celebrating their love of books with Book Week. Book Week is an initiative of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) and has been running since 1945. The CBCA mission statement is;
“to achieve positive social impact by engaging the community with literature for young Australians.”
…and one of the ways they achieve this through the annual book of the year awards. Each year members of the CBCA painstakingly analyse thousands of Australian books to create a longlist, which gets whittled down to a shortlist from which the Book of the Year is chosen. There are six categories in the CBCA awards;
- Book of the Year: Older Readers,
- Book of the Year: Younger Readers,
- Book of the Year: Early Childhood,
- Picture Book of the Year,
- Eve Pownall Award and the Crichton Award for New Illustrators.
The winners are announced each year on the third Friday in August and the announcement marks the beginning of Book Week.
Book Week is celebrated in many ways throughout the country. Schools, libraries, bookshops and community organisations host a dazzling range of activities for children to experience and enjoy the wonder of reading. At Trinity Grammar both the Preparatory and Junior Schools embrace Book Week and try to involve everyone in the school in their celebrations.
Each year, at both campuses, we hold a book fair for students to purchase books to refresh their home libraries. There are also many lunchtime activities targeted at different age groups and reader preferences. The Book Parade is of course the highlight of the week providing a welcome opportunity for students, staff, and sometimes parents to dress up as their favourite characters and show them off to the school.
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- Book
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- Parade
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- Geddit?
We’ve seen some amazing costumes over the years, ranging from Harry Potter and his friends (The Junior School even had a golden snitch and a Nimbus 2000 one year and the Prep school had the Hogwarts Express!) to lots of treehouses thanks to Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. We’ve seen superheroes and villains, characters from classic books and new releases, hand made and bought.
Regardless of what the students have dressed up as their best accessory is the smile they wear as they celebrate their love of books. We can’t wait to share all the best pictures from this year’s Book Week celebrations with you.
Follow us on instagram at @tgsjuniorlibrary and @tgspreplibrary to stay up to date.
By Mrs Nolan and Mrs Weber
