11 Mar NHPS World Book Day winners!

In my last post, I unveiled the short story I wrote for my Patron of Reading school, North Harringay Primary School. The teachers had asked me to respond to this writing stimulus before unleashing it on the school:

Imagine your favourite book character has come to life for a day. What would you do and what would you experience on that day?

The pupils rose to the challenge, and now I can unveil the three winning stories. Here we go…

1. Eloise (Year 6 – Oak Class)

I have to say it came as quite a shock when I saw Fredrick, Bets and Buster walking down the road.  It was even more of a surprise when I saw Anne, George and Timmy joining them.  As this sort of thing had never happened before, I decided to hide in a nearby bush and spy on them from a safe distance.

I had followed them all the way to the local park until Buster and Timmy had spotted me in a tiny hole in a tree.  “Well hello there,” cried Fredrick, “What’s your name?”

“Eloise,” I replied in a timid voice.

“I say, why are you wearing those funny clothes?” exclaimed Anne.

“It’s 2016, everyone dresses like this.” I replied calmly.

“Golly! This isn’t our time period!  What are we doing here?” shouted all four children at once.

“I’m not quite sure why you’re here.  It’s quite strange really.”  I then lowered my voice in case someone was listening.  “We had better get you home before someone notices you.”  Then all of a sudden there was a loud rumbling noise.

“Sorry,” George smiled apologetically.  “Timmy gets hungry if he doesn’t eat lunch.”

Once we had all eaten lunch, we tried to find a way to send everyone back home.  All of a sudden, Anne and Bets jumped up in excitement.  “We know why we’re here!  It’s because it’s World Book Day!”

“Oh yes you must be right.  But that doesn’t answer our question of how we are going to get back home?” replied the others.

“I know, as it is World Book Day, I just have to summon my favourite book characters – other than you guys of course.” I stated.

We stood in a circle and began chanting the name Mildred at a steady pace.  After chanting it seven times, she finally appeared.  “I’m ever so sorry Mildred but can you help us?  There are fictional characters popping up all over London and we need your help to return them to their books.”  I begged.

She muttered a spell under her breath and then BOOM!  All of the characters had vanished and the public went back to doing whatever it was they were doing as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

I knew otherwise.

2. Leelou (Year 3 – Maple Class)

When the sky was dark and the owls were hooting I woke up in the middle of the night to read some of my book called Alice in the Wonderland. All of a sudden Alice took her hand out of the book and she sucked me up in the story. Rapidly I landed in Alice’s wonderland. I felt blown away because this was my favourite book and I could only land here in my dreams.

“Wow!” I shouted in excitement. “Whoosh! Run! Stop!” I went sprinting after some kind of quick creature with a blue dress and blonde hair. It stopped next to a type of crooked tree; I came closer and….. Alice was there trying to escape from the queen of hearts! I tried to help but she took my arm and dragged me in the forest. After she showed me all kinds of crazy things like: The Mad Hatter and everyone else or everything else. 

“Yay!” Alice and the Mad Hatter shouted in happiness.

We felt exhausted, so it was time to go home. “Goodbye,” I said and they both replied back. I got sucked up in my bed and I went back to sleep…

3. Hunter (Year 2 – Tulip Class)

Once upon a time, I was walking in the big city of New York. I was all calm until…. James Bond appeared!!! I said “Hello,” to him and walked off. Just at that moment something grabbed me and took me back to James. “You must be my sidekick,” said James importantly. “O-o-o k,” I stammered.“Good,” James said, lowering his voice to a whisper “The worst, most terrifying monster has attacked New York, here’s your weapon,” he handed me a gun and 1,000,000 bullets. I ran about 100 yards until I faced the monster. I shot the monster quivering with braveness. On the 100^th shot, he wobbled….. And crashed. “Well done, Hunter!” shouted James.

The next day I went back to England and gave my mum a big smack on the cheek.

The standard was obviously very, very high – Ms. Hassan also sent me a great Alex Rider story by Aadam in Year 6 Oak Class – but I have to say my favourite is Hunter’s story. I would definitely be much more interested in James Bond if he fought monsters! (I also really like the last line.)

Well done to all NHPS’s young writers, and congratulations to the winners!