The Siobhan Dowd Trust News BRINGING BOOKS AND READING TO DISADVANTAGED YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE UK

At the Edinburgh Book Festival this year...

August 24, 2017

This year's lecture at the Edinburgh International Book Festival will be given by Cressida Cowell on Friday August 25th. Cressida Cowell is an outspoken advocate of the need to get kids reading for pleasure. The lecture will be introduced by the...

Have you seen A Monster Calls yet?

November 29, 2016

A Monster Calls the movie opened in the UK and US over the New Year. The screenplay is also by Patrick Ness to reassure the book's fans nervous about a film version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm7-VMur8S0 Here is a short film made by Variety featuring Patrick (talking...

Our Bookshop-spree grants

May 11, 2016

In 2019 we are repeating the opportunity for schools and groups who work with disadvantaged young people to apply for a series of small grants to be spent in local independent bookshops. This year we will do this monthly, and aim...

Trailer For A MONSTER CALLS

November 19, 2015

matt haig at edinburgh - in full!

November 10, 2015

two short films

September 3, 2015

Here are links to two short films we've just made. tinyurl.com/sdowd15 is a short (7 1/2 minutes) version of Matt Haig's BOOKS CAN SAVE US speech given this August at The Edinburgh International Book Festival. tinyurl.com/3projects was shown at Edinburgh before...

MATT HAIG gives our Edinburgh lecture

August 24, 2015

On Sunday August 16th Matt Haig gave the second Siobhan Dowd Trust Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Jan 2015 New Grants

January 26, 2015

At the January Trustee meeting, it was decided to fund two projects: A family reading day project run by the Prisons Reading Group and Roehampton University. (We've funded work in prisons before and are very committed to projects like this...

Book exchange: One school's experience

January 9, 2015

Our 2015 project will be building and supplying simple book exchanges to communities in the UK. The very first have already been delivered in the first week of the school term. They will be hosted by Bearwood Primary School and will...

CONGRATULATIONS Light Oaks Juniors, Salford

November 19, 2014

Today Siobhan's sister & Trustee Denise Dowd and I visited our SLA School Library competition winner, Light Oaks Junior School in Salford. They made a HUGE deal out of the official opening: the library is now fully stocked with an...

a love letter to liverpool libraries (all libraries under threat really...)

November 6, 2014

UPDATE: The Mayor of Liverpool has announced that the 11 libraries will not be closed - wonderful news! Congratulations library campaigners and Liverpool City Council.. Liverpool Council have announced that 11 of the city's 19 libraries may have to be...

PATRICK NESS: His Edinburgh speech in full...

August 18, 2014

Read Patrick Ness's Siobhan Dowd Trust Memorial Lecture which he gave to a full house at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Saturday August 16th.

PATRICK NESS GIVES INAUGURAL SIOBHAN DOWD TRUST MEMORIAL LECTURE

July 20, 2014

The Siobhan Dowd Trust is delighted to announce that Patrick Ness, two time Carnegie medal winner and Author of A Monster Calls (among others!) will be the first person to give the Siobhan Dowd Memorial Lecture. It will be given...

YALC: WATCH THE MOVIE!

July 20, 2014

On Saturday 12th July the Siobhan Dowd Trust arranged for 75 students and their teachers / librarians to come to the first ever YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention organised by Childrens Laureate Malorie Blackman. They came from 15 different schools from...

SIGN UP TO BE A TRUST TWITTER FOLLOWER!

July 13, 2013

We use Twitter to announce new projects and opportunities and try to re-tweet things we think will be of interest that are good cause, reading for pleasure and Patrick Ness related! Follow us: @sdowdtrust

GUARDIAN BOOKCLUB ON "A MONSTER CALLS"

July 13, 2013

A Monster Calls was the subject of the July Guardian book club. Check out the on-line write-up HERE

A Monster Calls - A Doctor's view...

September 9, 2012

An interesting article is in today's edition of the Mail on Sunday by Kate Wheeler, a consultant paediatric oncologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. She read the book prior to publication to check it for medical accuracy, and since...

Listen out for A Monster Calls on Radio 4 extra

September 9, 2012

A Monster Calls is going to read over ten days (instead of the usual five) on 4 O'Clock Show onRadio 4 Extra starting on Monday, 10 September. Patrick Ness says it'll be "Just like Book at Bedtime. Except at 4." Catch Patrick talking to...

a monster calls wins BOTH Carnegie & Greenaway

June 14, 2012

A Monster Calls has become the first book ever to win BOTH the CILIP Carnegie and CILIP Kate Greenaway awards. It is two Carnegie awards in a row for Patrick, who won in 2011 for "Monsters of Men". In...

USE GRAPHIC NOVELS

March 7, 2012

Lynne Clark at South Bromsgrove High School says: "This year I decided to put a toe into the waters of the Graphic Novel and Manga (many thanks to the SLA Midlands Branch and Peters booksellers) and subsequently we are taking part...

CHANGING DISPLAYS

March 1, 2012

Wroughton Primary School emphasise the importance of displays: "To really immerse our children in books, we decided to turn the main corridor in our school into the book setting! Every term we choose a focus book and the whole...

"TAKE A RISK"

March 1, 2012

At The Ravensbourne School, Librarians run a scheme called "Take a Risk" where you borrow a book from the Library wrapped up in brown paper and string.

GUESS WHO'S READING?

March 1, 2012

Another idea from Eileen Roberts at The Ravensbourne school: ‘Guess Who’s Reading’ (photographs of people from our school community reading and you have to guess who they are)... We asked the Head Teacher recently what he was reading and he said...

READING COVERS EVERYTHING

March 1, 2012

Dean Fox works at Cornwallis Academy and I had to include part of his impassioned email: "As a school we value reading, not simply because it improves literacy and educational attainment, but because of the escapism, fun, excitement, fear and...

BOOKS AT BEDTIME

March 1, 2012

Stacey Coysh teaches at St Andrews CE Primary: "We have a books at bedtime each year where we invite all the children back to school in the evening (between 6pm-7pm) wearing their pyjamas and with their favourite teddy. The teachers...

USE PROPS, LIGHTING & A STORY CHAIR

March 1, 2012

Angela Wilkinson is the Librarian at Harper Green Secondary School: "At regular intervals throughout the school year I create a relaxing story-telling area in the library with comfy seating, fairy lights and a high-backed chair decked with colourful throws...

PASSIONATE LIBRARIANS

March 1, 2012

Valerie Dewhurst's enthusiasm shines through in a long detailed email outlining her initiatives and ends: "I feel having a love of books/reading is a must if you are to work with children in a library. You need that passion...

GRAPHIC STORIES

March 1, 2012

Ashton Gate Primary School has developed a new “Graphic Stories” collection which will be unveiled during their library week introducing quality picture books for older children, comics, graphic stories and even manga versions of some of Shakespeare’s plays.

ANGELS v VAMPIRES

March 1, 2012

The older teenagers really went for an Angels v Vampires face off at Slough & Eton Business & Enterprise College - Librarian Lindsey Blake explains what was involved: "We had a display with our most popular vampire books on...

VISITS TO LOCAL BOOKSHOP

March 1, 2012

Josie Heald from Rothwell Junior School regularly takes "small and varied groups of pupils to our local book shop where they have a budget of £15 each to buy new books for the school library. There are no restrictions on what...

SPECIAL READING

March 1, 2012

Sarah Bourne teaches at Mayfield School, a Special Needs School where they have a very different approach to reading. "We create many of our books into interactive ebooks, with lots of animations and sound effects. We also have recorder pen...

EXTREME READING

March 1, 2012

Di Midghall from St Richard's Catholic College held an extreme reading competition - entries included pupils next to Sydney Opera House, The olympic stadium, on the roof of a camper van etc and one teacher on top of Everest.

TEACHERS LOVING BOOKS

March 1, 2012

Liz Taylor is the Head of St. Philip's Catholic Primary and Nursery School: "Ours is not an innovative or original idea but we spread the love of reading and of books to the children by loving them ourselves! How can...

READING CAMPS

March 1, 2012

Netherfield Primary do many things including holding regular reading camps. Over to Hannah Madeley : "Every half term we hold a “Reading Camp” for children who have read lots at home. We pitch tents in school, and children get...

20 BOOKS TO READ BEFORE YOU'RE 20

March 1, 2012

Mary Bennett from Rednock School writes: "I was concerned that our Sixth Form students did not seem to read much, so in conjunction with 2 teachers, I devised a scheme called "20 books to read before you're 20". After...

WIERD & WONDERFUL BOOK CORNERS

March 1, 2012

Jo Rice from Little Mead Primary: "In one classroom we have a reading tent and in another we have a duvet and torches so that children can enjoy a story by torchlight. "

BOOK SPEED DATING

March 1, 2012

Kay Sellers from Worle Community School explains how she set this up: "We started by asking the students to bring in a copy of their all time favourite book to the next 'Bookworms' meeting. Before they arrived, the teacher and...

A YEAR WITH THE "BOOKies"

March 1, 2012

At Calderdale High School in New Lanarkshire they run a book group. The passion expressed in the entry from Librarian Lesley Ann MacDonald speaks for itself: "I have a confession to make. Every Friday last session I went to the...

NOVEL OPENINGS DURING REGISTRATION

March 1, 2012

Beth Gregory from Chipping Campden School (a secondary) suggests: "Before class begins, we use our whiteboards to project the openings of novels or works of non-fiction to give students something to read and to think about while sorting out books...

HAVE A POETRY TREE

March 1, 2012

At St Michaels in East Sussex, they have a Poetry tree in the hall. Catherine O'Shea explains: "When children and adults read a poem they like they add a leaf to the branches of the tree. This raises the profile...

more award nominations...

February 23, 2012

After the success of the Red House book award win for A Monster Calls, there is news from the USA, where the book has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Award, and also for the extremely cool Bram...

... and another win!

January 17, 2012

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (based on an idea by Siobhan) has won a Red Tentacle award, designed to reward books that are "progressive, intelligent and entertaining" genre fiction. And the wonderful illustrator of A Monster Calls, Jim Kay...

Readers for Life

December 8, 2011

At Brooklands Primary School in Greenwich, they are about to launch a "Readers for life" project which will include parent and child reading groups, visiting authors, help and advice for Parents about encouraging their child to read for pleasure and organising...

Invite in Authors & Illustrators

December 8, 2011

Arnhem Wharf Primary School in Tower Hamlets have hosted many authors and illustrators over the years: in 2011 the then Children's Laureate, Anthony Browne visited and played the Shape Game with staff, children and parents. Pupils had prepared for the...

Have a reading corner in the playground

December 8, 2011

At Ashmead Primary School in Lewisham, a health and safety concern turned into a book initiative: the new Head was worried about pupils using a slope covered in astroturf as an unofficial skidding hill - he re-designated it the Reading hill...

Fundraise with a 24hr Read-a-thon involving the whole school

December 8, 2011

A need for funds to buy books led to a 24-hour Read-a-thon for Mitchell Brook Primary School in Brent:Someone in the school had to read for every part of that time and 60 children stayed overnight at school to complete the...

Letterbox Reception

November 15, 2011

The first grant awarded by the Trust was for a pilot project for an expansion of the Letterbox Club scheme targetting 11-13 year old Looked after Children. In 2010 60 children in 11 different Local Authorities were selected, sent...

Schools Campaign

September 6, 2011

NEW FOR 2012 - TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS: WE NEED YOUR HELP - Tell us how you spread the Joy of Reading and win £1000 worth of books for your school! The Siobhan Dowd Trust is proud to announce that...