BOOK WEEK BRINGS LITERATURE TO LIFE THROUGH TORCHLIGHT READINGS, CAVES & COMEDY

To mark the 17th World Book Day, Sedbergh staff and pupils are involved in a week of activities which use local geographical and historic features to bring literature to life. The aim of World Book Day is to encourage young people to explore the pleasures of books and reading.

World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. Sedbergh School marks the event this year by taking advantage of local features in Sedbergh, such as Coleridge in a Cave and Sir Gwain the Green Knight by torchlight on Castle Mount, a well preserved motte and bailey castle.

A full diary of events for the week, ‘the abc of reading’, is complemented by impromptu readings taking place in the Houses such as a lunch time reading of Machiavelli’s The Prince  in School House yesterday. Other pop-up readings will be happening throughout the week in Houses and Departments.
 
On Monday Mrs Parry and pupils met in Akay Woods for ‘Bold Books and a Bonfire’, on  Tuesday, Dr Downes re-visited Wordsworth’s great Romantic ode ‘Tintern Abbey’ alongside the music of Arvo Pärt and Mr Wright will be reading excerpts from the greatest Scottish poem of the 20th century,  A Drunken Man Looks at a Thistle. If you are Scottish and don’t know this poem, Dr Downes strongly recommends that you go and listen to this reading! It takes place at 9.15pm in the School Library. 

Mr Hattam’s reading of ‘Rowing Without Oar’, by Ulla-Carin Lunquist, in the Cloisters takes place at 9.15pm on Wednesday and Mr Cooper-Colliander will read ‘Sir Gwain the Green Knight’ on the Castle Mound – meet at the King’s Steps 9pm on Thursday. Bring a torch! Mrs Wright and Mr Sands will be reading ‘From the Ridiculous to the Even More Ridiculous –  modern comic writing’ on Friday morning in Powell Hall at 10.30am and Dr Ripley will celebrate the birth and work of Dr Julius Wagner-Jauregg, Nobel Laureate 1927, in the Burke and Hare Club, Room 42 Friday 9.15pm.

Our younger pupils at Casterton, Sedbergh Preparatory School, mark the event with fun competitions, ‘Drop Everything and Read’ sessions, a Waterstones Book Fair and a Dress Up as your Favourite Literary Character Day, raising money for charity. 

Follow Sedbergh: