On Monday 4 July, Sydenham High hosted a celebration event for the Year 7/ Year 8 Lewisham Schools Book Award 2022. Students from 5 different Lewisham secondary schools gave fantastic creative presentations on books from the shortlist, with two of the short-listed authors in attendance.
Jamie Russell, author of Skywake: Invasion and Skywake: Battlefield, talked about how videogames of the early 80s inspired a love of reading science fiction. He provided scientific evidence of the benefits of playing video games (for short periods of time!) which include enhanced memory, better decision making, improved co-ordination and possible reduction of stress.
Elle McNicoll, author of A Kind of Spark, Show Us Who You Are and Like a Charm, gave an insight into her journey to becoming a published author with Knights Of, a small publishing company in Brixton who champion diverse and under-represented authors and characters. Elle spoke of the challenges she had faced as a neurodivergent author and the importance of neurodivergent characters for readers to identify with. Elle encouraged the students to follow their dreams, as she had done, and to rise above challenges other people put in their way.
Young Mayor of Lewisham, Rosanna Campbell, spoke about how much she enjoys reading books and using her imagination to visualise characters and events herself, before announcing the winning book which was Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes closely followed by Elle’s and Jamie’s books. It was such a good shortlist, there were literally 3 votes between the top 3 books!
Our compere for the event, Nick White from Lewisham Libraries, kept everything moving smoothly and engaged students in conversations about book covers, blurbs, and what they liked to read. Nick and Kat Blench, also from Lewisham Libraries, recorded some short audio interviews with students and authors to include in a future Library Words podcast.
Tales on Moon Lane were on hand at the end of the event to sell books to be personally signed by the visiting authors.
Thank you to everyone who attended, and to the others who voted but were unable to attend on the day.
