Chatterbooks Week!

Activity Pack

Reading and activity ideas for your Chatterbooks group

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Chatterbooks Week 11th – 18th October 2014

Chatterbooks Week 2014 is a celebration of Chatterbooks, the UK’s largest network of children’s reading groups, and of the fun that goes on in Chatterbooks sessions. It’s a chance for schools, libraries and individuals across the UK to introduce children to the pleasure of reading and sharing books by taking part in Chatterbooks activity, or setting up a Chatterbooks group. Here’s a special message from our Ambassador, Dame Jacqueline Wilson: “Taking part in this special Chatterbooks Week is a great way to carry on the fun and excitement of the Summer Reading Challenge and I know that Chatterbooks groups old and new will have a fantastic time getting together, finding out about great books and chatting. I can't wait to hear all about it!" This special Chatterbooks Week activity pack from The Reading Agency and Children’s Reading Partners, has session ideas which will work well when you’re starting a new group, or having a special party-themed meeting. In here you can also meet favourite authors who are our our new Chatterbooks Champions! For other themes for your Chatterbooks Week session have a look at our Jacqueline Wilson and Chocolates, Sweets and other Treats packs – or you could tie in with Star Wars Reads Day on October 11th. Chatterbooks [ www.readinggroups.org/chatterbooks] is a reading group programme for children aged 4 to 14 years. It is coordinated by The Reading Agency and its patron is author Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Chatterbooks groups run in libraries and schools, supporting and inspiring children’s literacy development by encouraging them to have a really good time reading and talking about books. The Reading Agency is an independent charity working to inspire more people to read more through programmes for adults, young people and Children – including the Summer Reading Challenge, and Chatterbooks. See www.readingagency.org.uk Children’s Reading Partners is a national partnership of children’s publishers and libraries working together to bring reading promotions and author events to as many children and young people as possible.

Contents 3 Warm ups 4 Activity ideas: a Chatterbooks Party! 7 Top Ten Books to make you happy 10 Chatterbooks Champions 12 Sample Chatterbooks session

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Warm ups: getting to know each other, especially at the start of a new group.

Roald Dahl’s birthday is on the 13th September. Does anyone have a birthday in September? Find out when each other’s birthdays are and see if you can line up in the right order of the months – and days – starting with September…

A Roald Dahl version of the game ‘Port, Starboard’: Designate four corners as different characters from Roald Dahl books. These could be The BFG, Mr Twit, Charlie Bucket, and Matilda. Call out the names randomly – children then run to the right corner. The last one there each time is out!

WORDSEARCH Find all these favourite storybook characters! MR GUM MR FOX WIMPY KID CINDERELLA BILLIONAIRE BOY SPOT CAT IN THE HAT ASTERIX HARRY POTTER PADDINGTON PEPPA PIG WALLY MARY POPPINS GRUFFALO Q W I M P Y K I D U W A L L Y Q M B M R E M N W C V Z S S F E W A A S G P A D D I N G T O N D R R R U U P L K R L G P E Y C B T Y E R M A G T Y T O L R L J G K P L B N P Z C G A B W I B H L R O G D X I L G J H C O X K V L E P P K G G L C V E Z F Q N Q M T P T U R W E R Y H J S K L X T T I B C U V R X C T H I B N O U O N R W F B E O D N V M Q P F G P S P U F R D E W I A E S F R R Y L R Y A K N P J T H T S G M V R X B I L L I O N A I R E B O Y R U T E O B C M B C V A S M G B A Z C B M L J G D A Q P T U X P H

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Look for the words across, down, upside-down, and from right to left. The answers are at the end of this pack HAPPY SCRAMBLING! See if you can unscramble these Happy words!

HAPPY THIDBARY You have one every year!

HAPPY IFASMILE Mum and dad, and aunts and uncles

HAPPY SMITCRASH December 25th

THE HAPPY PERNIC A story by Antoine St Exupery

HAPPY- OG-UCKLY Feeling carefree

HAPPY WEN ERAY What you say on January 1st

HAPPY AS A KARL A bird

HAPPY VEER FRATE The last words of a story

HAPPY TEFE Think penguin!

HAPPY DINGEN The last part of something

Activity ideas A CHATTERBOOKS PARTY! Start off with warm ups like the ones above. Make bunting to decorate the library – there are lots of online links to templates and instructions. Here’s a useful one! Get people to bring in scraps of bright material, or use plain material and use felt tips to decorate the flags with words and patterns.

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Make party hats! Again lots of online links, just like this one. Cone shaped hats are easy to make and fun to decorate with shiny shapes and tassels and all sorts of collage-y things – or you could have paper or cardboard crowns.

Don’t forget the party food! Crisps, squash, a special cake – maybe cupcakes decorated to show book titles. Or you could have a competition for a showstopper cupcake!

And the games…. Enjoy traditional party games like Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs – or this Memory Game Get together 10 to 15 objects on a tray – eg. spoon, pencil, badge etc Give your group 1 minute to look at them and try to fix them in their memory. Cover the objects. Each person then writes down in a list as many objects as they can remember. The winner is the one who remembers most objects.

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Alternate version: Cover the objects, remove one object – children then have to identify which object has been taken away. Repeat, removing a different object each time. The winner is the one with the most correct answers. Another activity which groups enjoy is making Shape Poems: It’s great fun to give your poem the shape of what you’re writing about. Valerie Bloom does this with Pyramid: A Stately Chamber where Vast treasures are hid And a variation on this is Grace Nichol’s Snowflake fluttering down the page Snowflake you little clown c a r n i v a l l i n g d o w n A small ghost kiss on my warm tongue.

Or how about a heart poem? Write the words of your poem inside this shape (or draw a heart on a separate piece of paper)

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See sample Chatterbooks session plan at the end of this pack. It’s taken from our new Chatterbooks Handbook – for full details see The Reading Agency Shop. Instead of goody bags have goody books! Here are some favourite books for your group to take home and enjoy – they are the top recommendations from children on our Summer Reading Challenge website. Vote in our poll for the most popular book!

Top Ten Books to make you happy!

No.1 Jeff Kinney Diary of a Wimpy Kid Puffin 978-0141324906 Let me get something straight: this is a JOURNAL, not a diary. This was Mom's idea, not mine. But if she thinks I'm going to write down my "feelings" in here she's crazy. The only reason I agreed to do this at all is because I figure later on when I'm rich and famous, this book is gonna come in handy. Today is the first day of school, so I figured I might as well write in this book to pass the time. Just don't expect me to be all "Dear Diary" this and "Dear Diary" that. Jeff Kinney is an online game developer and designer, and New York Times

bestselling author. Jeff has been named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Powerful People in the World. Jeff lives in Southern Massachusetts with his wife and their two sons.

No.2 Roald Dahl The Twits Puffin 978-0141346397 Mr and Mrs Twit are extremely nasty, so the Muggle-Wump monkeys and the Roly-Poly bird hatch an ingenious plan to give them just the ghastly surprise they deserve! Roald Dahl, the much-loved children's writer, was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After school in England he went to work for Shell in Africa. He began to write after "a monumental bash on the head", sustained as an RAF pilot in World War II. Roald Dahl died in 1990. Quentin Blake is one of the best-known and best-loved children's illustrators and

it's impossible now to think of Roald Dahl's writings without imagining Quentin Blake's illustrations.

No.3 David Walliams Gangsta Granny HarperCollins 978-0007371464

Our hero Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma’s house. She’s the boringest grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn’t know about his grandma. 1) She was once an international jewel thief. 2) All her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and now she needs Ben’s help…

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David Walliams is currently the fastest growing children's author in the UK. His books have been translated into over twenty-five languages and have collectively sold over one million copies in the UK alone. His books have achieved much critical acclaim and it comes as no surprise that countless broadsheet reviewers have compared him to his all-time hero, Roald Dahl.

No.4 Jacqueline Wilson & Nick Sharratt The Worst Thing About My Sister Yearling 978-0440869283 Marty and her sister Melissa couldn't be more different. Marty loves her Converse trainers, playing football, hiding in her secret den and helping her dad with his DIY. Melissa loves Justin Bieber and all things pink, girly and pretty. But when Mum tells them they have to share a room, the girls soon discover that being too close for comfort can have unexpected consequences. Jacqueline Wilson is a hugely popular author. Jacqueline has won the prestigious

Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award for Double Act, which was also highly commended for the Carnegie Medal. In June 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was made a Dame.

No.5 Julia Donaldson The Gruffalo 978-0333710937 "A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good." Walk further into the deep dark wood, and discover what happens when the quick-thinking mouse comes face to face with an owl, a snake and a hungry gruffalo . . . Julia Donaldson, the 2011-2013 Children's Laureate, is the talented, prize-winning author of the world's most-loved picture books including The

Gruffalo and What the Ladybird Heard.

No.6 Liz Pichon The Brilliant World of Tom Gates Scholastic 978-1407120690 Tom Gates is a master of excuses, expert doodler, comic story writer extraordinaire – and the bane of his grumpy teacher Mr Fullerman’s life. And in his wacky journal of scribbles and silliness, you’ll find all sorts of comic craziness to make you groan with glee! Will Tom ever manage to get his homework in on time, avoid the rage of his teacher – AND impress Amy

Porter, who sits next to him? Liz Pichon went to Camberwell School Of Art in London. Her first (and only) PROPER job was working for Jive Records designing Album covers. She is a freelance illustrator and The Brilliant World Of Tom Gates was Liz’s first fiction book for older children. She lives in Brighton.

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No.7 Francesca Simon Horrid Henry’s Dreadful Deeds Orion 978-1842557860 Made to be a page boy at a wedding, forced to go on a country walk, and dragooned into dinner at a posh restaurant - it's a hard life for Henry. But in these ten hilarious stories he shows he knows how to stick up for himself and get his own back. Brilliant new extras include instructions, notes from Horrid Henry, a recipe for a truly horrible drink, and you can even choose a new hairstyle for his unfavourite dinner guest!

Francesca Simon was born in the United States and now writes full-time, with many books published including the best-selling Horrid Henry series and many picture books. She lives in North London with her family.

No.8 Cressida Cowell How to Train Your Dragon Hodder 978-0340999073 Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was an awesome sword-fighter, a dragon-whisperer and the greatest Viking Hero who ever lived. But it wasn't always like that. He was once the most put upon Viking you'd ever seen. Not loud enough to make himself heard at dinner with his father, Stoick the Vast; not hard enough to beat his chief rival, Snotlout, at Bashyball, and CERTAINLY not stupid enough to go into a cave full

of dragons to find a pet... It's time for Hiccup to learn how to be a Hero. Cressida Cowell grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. She has written and illustrated eight books in the popular Hiccup series and has won the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2006. She lives in Hammersmith.

No.9 Dav Pilkey The Adventures of Captain Underpants Scholastic 978-0439014571 When George and Harold hypnotise their headteacher, they accidentally create the greatest superhero in the history of their school -- Captain Underpants! His true identity is so secret that even HE doesn't know who he is... but he's fighting for truth, justice, and all things pre-shrunk and cottony!! If you're a naughty villain like the diabolical Dr Diaper, watch out! Captain Underpants has wedgie-power on his side, and he's coming your way

Dav Pilkey is a popular American author and illustrator of children’s literature. He is best known as the author of the popular Captain Underpants series. He lives near Seattle, Washington.

No.10 Andy Stanton Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree Jelly Pie 978-1405252188 Welcome to a tale of forests! Of legendary beasts! Of misbehaving children! Of caterpillars called Graham! And of a great big BEEFER of a cherry tree! But what dark secrets are hidden in that tree, where the leaves grow thick and green? Polly intends to find out… Andy Stanton lives in North London. He has been a stand-up comedian, a film script reader, a cartoonist, an NHS lackey and lots of other things. His

favourite expression is ‘Good evening’ and his favourite word is ‘captain’.

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Our Chatterbooks Champions

‘Dear Chatterbooks, please go back in time and form in 1982. As a child I loved stories but found books slightly intimidating. I'd have given my nostrils to join a Chatterbooks group back then. It would have been the perfect way to demystify books, feed my fascinations and explore word-worlds with friends. Thanks in advance for the time travel.’ GUY BASS

‘Libraries change lives. Cobbett Road Library in Southampton changed mine. It's where I found the book that finally switched me on to reading after years of struggle. The book? Five Go To Smuggler's Top by Enid Blyton. They didn't have Chatterbooks groups back then but if they had I would have joined in a heartbeat. Once I'd become a bookworm I would have LOVED to share my discoveries with other kids like me. The only thing better than reading a great book is sharing your discovery of a great book with others - which is something you can do at Chatterbooks. You also get to review books, argue about books, vote about books. You even get to read first drafts and give feedback to the author. At least, a Southampton group did for ME. And probably will again. You're a crucial part of BookWorld, Chatterbooks! Keep it up... ' ALI SPARKES

'Imagine being able to read great books, pass them around and talk about them with other children. 8-year-old me would have loved that! I'd have jumped at the chance to join my local Chatterbooks. I've always read for pleasure, for entertainment, for excitement, and reading groups are a great way to share those possibilities with children.' ELEN CALDECOTT

‘I've met with plenty of Chatterbooks groups over the years and LOVE the way they turn the quiet, personal experience of reading a book into something lively, boisterous and inclusive. The Chatterbooks experience is terrifically positive – readers think harder, grow more confident in their opinions, find a new potency in words – and in themselves.’ STEVE COLE

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‘When I was a boy, just about everything used to get delivered to the village where I lived - including books! I can smell the mobile library as I write these words. I used to love climbing the steps and climbing back down again with an armful of stories. If only I’d been able to talk to others who liked the same authors and the same books as me. If only I’d had an actual library where I could meet with like-minded people and discuss what I’d been reading. If only…there’d been Chatterbooks.’ JONATHAN MERES

I think children's book groups are very important. When I work with children in schools and libraries I ask them what they like to read. I do it because I know the other children in the room are listening. Kids are more likely to want to read a book if one of their peers has raved about it. The more we can get all children talking about what they like to read the better. That's why I'm a Chatterbooks Champion. TOM PALMER

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Puzzle solutions WORDSEARCH W I M P Y K I D U W A L L Y Q M B M R E M N W C V Z S S F E W A A S G P A D D I N G T O N D R R R U U P L K R L G P E Y C B T Y E R M A G T Y T O L R L J G K P L B N P Z C G A B W I B H L R O G D X I L G J H C O X K V L E P P K G G L C V E Z F Q N Q M T P T U R W E R Y H J S K L X T T I B C U V R X C T H I B N O U O N R W F B E O D N V M Q P F G P S P U F R D E W I A E S F R R Y L R Y A K N P J T H T S G M V R X B I L L I O N A I R E B O Y R U T E O B C M B C V A S M G B A Z C B M L J G D A Q P T U X P H HAPPY SCRAMBLING! BIRTHDAY FAMILIES CHRISTMAS PRINCE GO-LUCKY NEW YEAR LARK EVER AFTER FEET ENDING

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Chatterbooks Suggested Session Outline

Welcome and Introduction (10 minutes) Welcome and ice-breaker activity (5 minutes, as children arrive)

Share and discuss the books they’ve been reading and share ways they have reviewed them ( 5 minutes )

Introduce this week’s session

Main Activity (20 minutes) Activities – exploring a theme or a story. This can be through writing, art, drama,

or any other way of encouraging children’s own creative work. (See Chatterbooks activity packs).

Adult reads aloud to the group (5 minutes) You might want a drink or a snack while they are listening, if you didn’t offer one

at the beginning. Ask questions to help with understanding the text.

Choosing a book (10 minutes) An opportunity to choose books to take home and read before the next

Chatterbooks meeting.

Finish (5 minutes) A reminder of the date and time of the next session and any more special events

coming up.