Detectives, Deadly Desperados, and Deranged Bunnies - An Action-Packed Dip into the Doncaster Book Award!

Students from three schools: Don Valley Academy, Sunnyfields Primary and Bentley High Street Primary got together on Tuesday 15th November to look at the brilliant books on offer on this year’s long list. Our joint workshop was held in the library at Don Valley and was led by Dave Cryer. It was fast, furious and action-packed, and right from the beginning the students threw themselves enthusiastically into the activities and really made the most of the day.

Obviously, with 20 books to think about, there was a lot to fit in. This type of workshop is excellent for giving the students a flavour of all the stories on offer and encouraging them to try new genres. It also works extremely well as a transition activity, as the Y6 students get to spend time in their future secondary school, meet some of our students and have an enjoyable experience associated with books and the library.

The first books we looked at were The Poisoned House, Ottoline at Sea and Wishful Thinking, a really mixed bag! Right from this first activity, the students began to work in mixed groups, helping build their confidence and setting the tone for the rest of the day.

Jamie Y6, Sunnyfields: ‘I have achieved working with pupils older and younger than me’

Keavey, Y7, Don Valley: ‘I have enjoyed working with other years and I have made loads of new friends. I think I have proved that I can work in a team and I can be mixed with different people’.

Jack, Y6 Bentley High Street: ‘Today at Don Valley I enjoyed the drama activities and having the chance to meet different people, also work with older children that have more experience of drama than me’.

It was interesting to see how the students managed to adapt their scripts, adding in extra characters and dialogue without losing the sense of the scenes they were playing, for example, another god character in the Wishful Thinking extract. Katie B. from Don Valley enjoyed acting from The Poisoned House, saying this was her ‘favourite part of the day’. Emily from Don Valley also liked this part, and now wants to read The Poisoned House as ‘it seems a bit eerie and I’d like to find out if Abi gets away or not’.

The next activity was based on the very scary horror novel The Dead by Charlie Higson. This generated a lot of discussion as quite a few of the students have read and really loved the book. It was quite difficult to keep them from giving away too many plot details! Again, the drama activity was done in groups, although we asked the students not to work with the same people as last time, but to mix themselves up, again, a good confidence building exercise.

Abby S, Don Valley: ‘I think I have become more confident because of today. I had to ask someone I didn’t know if I could work with them and I performed really well’

Corryn, Bentley High Street: ‘I have achieved more confidence today by talking to people from Don Valley and Sunnyfields’.

Jack, Sunnyfields: ‘I have achieved going to someone I don’t know and asking to work with them.’

Beth, Don Valley: ’I think I have achieved helping younger and shyer people to be more confident’.

The work produced here was absolutely excellent; I hadn’t realised there could be so many different types of Zombie, and all scary in their own way! The potential to play this scene for laughs was most definitely there, but all of the students resisted, and managed to inject some genuine tension into their performances. It is difficult to single anyone out, as all of the students did very well, however, Jamie from Sunnyfields was a truly excellent zombie, even if he did break character to politely apologise after accidentally standing on one of the ‘corpses’! Brandon, from Don Valley injected real fear into his voice as the ‘scared kid’ from the video at the start of the book, while Bradley from Bentley High Street and Jack from Sunnyfields also did very well in this role. In Jack’s group, Naomi and Rebecca from Bentley High Street added an extra dimension to the scene, playing victims who then became zombies in their turn. This activity could be said to have had mixed results in promoting the book: Daniel from Bentley High Street said that ‘ I now want to read The Dead by Charlie Higson mainly because when I saw the others acting it looks like a great book’, and Jack from the same school said ‘after acting it out and finding it mysterious, interesting and awesome I now want to find out more’, while Maggie from Sunnyfields in contrast said ’I would now like to read The Deadly Desperados and The Poisoned House but no way am I reading The Dead, YUCK!’

Next we looked at One Dog and his Boy, Pip and the Twilight Seekers and Billionaire Boy. Several of the children had met Pip author and illustrator Chris Mould at our launch event in the Civic and said how much they’d enjoyed watching him create a character on stage. When the performances began, Brittany from Don Valley and her group did really well in creating an atmospheric portrayal of the cold, dead winter forest, while Abby M, also from Don Valley, narrated for the performers. Holly from Bentley High Street did a good job narrating her groups’ scene from One Dog and his Boy; this group had Poppy from Sunnyfields playing ‘Hal’, and added in some very funny extra dialogue of their own. The groups doing Billionaire Boy also added in extra dialogue to show not only the amazing world of a boy who can have anything he wants, but also that money doesn’t buy friendship. Jack from Sunnyfields was very convincing as ‘Joe’ demanding that his Dad get him a friend. Naomi from Bentley High Street said that ‘my favourite book had to be Billionaire Boy’, and Caitlin and Joe from Sunnyfields both now want to read it too, Caitlin thinks it ‘sounds good’ and Joe likes comedy.

After lunch, the students worked in pairs. The books chosen included The Deadly Desperados where Imogen and Eleanor from Don Valley did some amazing American accents as Pinky and Mum; Killer Pass, with some very convincing teenage conflict, Poison Pen; and the fable-like Noah Barleywater Runs Away. This last book is very unusual and hard to define, so I was pleased when Abby S. said that ‘before today I wasn’t really interested in reading Noah Barleywater but now I want to read it because it looks weird and interesting.’ Brandon now wants to read The Case of the Deadly Desperados, ‘because it sounds thrilling and I want to know what happens’, while Abby M. said ‘After doing this workshop I really want to read Killer Pass and I wouldn’t have wanted to before because it looks like a football book and it isn’t really a football book.’

The final activity was from the mad-cap comedy When Bunnies Turn Bad. This wasn’t scripted, it was a totally improvised piece where students at first volunteered to be a ‘bad bunny’. It is hard to describe the outcome, suffice it to say it was very funny, and some of the rabbits looked almost deranged, you certainly wouldn’t want to meet them while walking in the countryside! Holly from Bentley High Street was a fantastic bullying bunny gang leader. The second part with so-called ‘good bunnies’ was not much less frightening even with with Joe from Sunnyfields here playing the ‘Best Bunny Ever.’

Overall it was an excellent event and the feedback from all the students attending was overwhelmingly positive. It was successful on several levels; as an introduction to the books and an encouragement to reading, as a confidence –booster, and as a transition activity. Most importantly it was a fun and enjoyable day for the students taking part.

Nicole, Don Valley: ‘I enjoyed everything’

Alfie, Don Valley: ‘I thought today was great and I really enjoyed it’

Daniel, Bentley High Street: ‘Today was great’

Maggie, Sunnyfileds: ‘I have really enjoyed myself today’.

Lyn Hopson,
Librarian, Don Valley Academy and Performing Arts College.

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