Going for Gold
Carnegie Medal Session Summer 2001

 

Twelve students from FSSW travelled to Birmingham to attend the Carnegie Medal session of Going for the Gold, celebrations which are held annually in Birmingham as part of the Young Readers UK Festival. Only 250 children throughout the UK are given this opportunity and there was a waiting list of 2000.

They were able to hear some of the eight short-listed contenders for this year's Carnegie Medal talking about their work. Jamila Gavin explained that The Wanderer was based on a real life story of her daughter and some friends sailing from Connecticut to Ireland. Alan Gibbons, writer of The Shadow of the Minotaur, said his inspiration was simply FEAR. "It was a really cool event," said Leo Capella of Year 9. Kiran Chakravarti and James McCall, Year 8, both agreed that Alan Gibbons was a very entertaining speaker, especially when talking of his fear of poodles!

Heather Dowling, Leigh Jameson and Sophie Oelman, Year 9, were keen to point out that all the authors obviously spoke from the heart. Sophie went on to say that some of the books with really weird, complicated plots and strange characters, were actually written by very normal people!