Three decades of Book Week

BSB will be fifty years old in 2020 and, likewise, BSB’s Book Week will be celebrating thirty years in its regular third week of October slot. Arguably one of the biggest school book weeks anywhere in the world, it takes two years to prepare this biennial celebration of books and reading.

In Secondary School, we have welcomed no less than four Children’s Laureates in Michael Rosen, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, and Chris Riddell. Top UK poets including Benjamin Zephaniah, Lemn Sissay, Ian McMillan, Harry Baker, and John Hegley have all captivated students and parents alike in lesson time and performance evenings. Throw in international authors, such as Anne Provost, Chika Unigwe, and Alex Wheatle, then we have clearly had through three decades a ‘bookfest’ and not just a book week! The list of great adult and children’s author is endless and we have not even mentioned the likes of Marcus Sedgwick, Anthony Horowitz, Patrick Gale. Geraldine McCraughean, Alan Gibbons, and Chris Bradford. In Primary School, it has always been about the experience as much as who the author is. Our children have been inspired to write, to illustrate and to perform over the years. To have Alex Brychta, the original illustrator of all the Oxford Reading Tree books (amongst his many other accomplishments) bring our own staff to the page on large posters; Liz Million teaching the children the wonders of using pencil lines to create illustrations; and Adam Bushnell working alongside them in writing stories with that ‘wow’ factor: we have been exceptionally privileged. Tony Ross, Neil Griffiths, Kaye Umansky, Ian Bland and Mairi Hedderwick are just a few of the many extraordinary and talented visitors we have had. Highlights have been the launch assemblies, with children and teachers alike dressed up on a variety of themes, the bookshops set up on campus for the week, the evenings held in Brel theatre where we have gained insight in to the lives and the work of our guests and of course the smiles, laughter and inspiration.

Most memorable performer? A lways Adisa, the Pied Piper of Book Week, with Year 12 and 13 on period 4 on a Wednesday and, of course, those legendary sessions before school in which he declaimed his verse from on high in the cherry picker; most memorable performance, the late and the great Adrian Mitchell in 1994 who bared his soul with forthright tenderness. Who to thank? Many, many colleagues and students but, particularly those students who have performed in the Poetry Slam in the last two decades – thank you from all your audiences!

Most of all, our book week secretaries, Sue, Kate, Amanda and Michelle, who have organised us over three decades to celebrate the joys of reading in the BSB community. But

above all, the vision of the founding principal of BSB, Alan Humphries, who set reading at the heart of the school and the pioneering work of the indefatigable Hilary Vervaeck in those early days of the hub of book week, on our much-cherished committee.

In our golden year, our 50th anniversary, as you would expect, we have an extra special Book Week planned in October 2020. Echoing the history of the school, we have taken the theme of ‘Epic Journeys’. We have authors and illustrators that will share stories of adventure, travel, exploration and overcoming adversity. It promises to be a wonderful voyage through the week!