A Fabulous Friday Finale for the DBA!

Friday the 13th was anything but unlucky in Doncaster, as this year’s award scheme finished with a flourish!

Over 300 children from participating schools joined Energy Secretary Ed Miliband MP, our Civic Mayor and Dignitaries and our two visiting authors, Fiona Dunbar and George Layton, for a wonderful afternoon at the Civic Theatre.

The event was introduced by our Chair, Lesley Hurworth, who welcomed everyone and got things started, and was then hosted, as usual, by Dave Cryer. It was quite a packed programme.

Ed Miliband made a speech talking about the importance of enjoying reading for pleasure, and congratulated all the students for their efforts in reading, reviewing and voting for their favourites.

Next up were Don Valley Readers' Group, with their presentation based on Teacher’s Dead by Benjamin Zephaniah. The dramatic opening scene formed the basis of this, and they tried to get across the anti-knives message with a colourful banner.

Our first author talk was from Fiona Dunbar, one of this year’s long-listed authors. Fiona spoke entertainingly about how she progressed from Art College, to illustrator, to writer, and spoke about how she gets ideas for her books. She then took some audience questions, and could have had many more had time allowed!

The second school presentation was from Hungerhill School, who did a scene from Shadow Goblins by David Melling. This was excellent, very funny and well received by the audience.

Following this, three students from North Doncaster Technology College came on stage to talk about their involvement with the award right from its first year. They spoke really well, with confidence and humour, and it was very encouraging to the Committee members present to hear how much they have enjoyed participating in the various activities and discovering new authors and books. We must be doing something right!

Next up was Paul from Waterstones, who have supported the scheme for the last three years. Paul had kindly offered to judge the review competition, for which Waterstones provided the prize. This was awarded to Liam from Armthorpe, for his excellent review of Born to Run.

For the second year running, the DBA also ran a creative writing competition. This had two prizes, one for primary and one for secondary. We were very lucky this year to have support from two of our long-list authors, as well as Dave himself for the process. Darren Shan was kind enough to provide us with a fantastic opening line for the stories, and Paul Magrs, a short listed author, agreed to act as judge. The primary winner was Ben from Hatchell Wood, and the secondary winner was Hollie from Danum School.

It was then the turn of author, screenwriter and actor George Layton to come onstage. George began by speaking about his work, both as an author and writing for television. He then read a short story from one of his books, The Trick, and encouraged his audience to discuss the themes and characters. Sadly, due again to time constraints, he was only able to answer a few audience questions, as from the number of hands raised there were quite a few wanting to speak!

It was then on to the main event, the winner announcement! The excitement in the air was almost tangible as Lesley took the stage again. She opened the golden envelope to a ‘drum roll’ from the audience, who then erupted in applause as Teacher’s Dead was revealed as the winner. It was clearly a popular choice with those present. We hope to invite Benjamin Zephaniah to attend the launch of next year’s award.

All in all it was a great afternoon, and a great end to what has been an especially good DBA year. Students from Doncaster College Media Department have made a film of the event, including supplementary interviews with the guests, authors and audience. This will be available later this year and we look forward to re-living the day. The Committee would like to thank everyone who was involved, in any capacity, with this year’s award, and most especially the young people of Doncaster, for helping make it a fabulous experience for us all.

Roll on next year!
Lyn Hopson, Secretary, Doncaster Book Award

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