On the 5th of March, a group of year 8s went to Croydon High School for the GDST Book Award of 2016/17 Ceremony where the award was presented to the author Lisa Williamson, for her book, The Art of Being Normal. We left school at 2:45pm and after a train, a bus ride and a short stop at Greggs for some snacks, we finally arrived at Croydon High.

Once we entered we sat down in the library and had the opportunity to buy copies of Lisa Williamson’s books, The Art of Being Normal and All About Mia, and get them signed by Lisa herself. Soon after, we had drunk our fill of lemonade and had our new books signed, so we settled down for the award ceremony and Lisa’s talk about her books. We learnt what the background of and basis for her books was, which was really interesting; she also gave us images of her twitter feed relating to her books with the #whatisnormal.

Almost at the end of the book award, Lisa read an extract from her book All About Mia. One of the best parts of the talk however, was definitely getting to ask more questions to Lisa at the end about her books and some top tips if we wanted to write some books of our own. Overall, it was a wonderful opportunity and was great to meet such a successful female author.

by Emilia Beveridge, Emily Glover, Ipek Tsil Kara, Isobel Gardiner-Hill, Quinn Samways Mortby, Elisa Morris, Lilly Russell, year 8.