Judy Seall, Acting Head of English

One Life in the Day of a Confirmed Book Addict

Life begins early with the Ladybird book – very possibly Adventure on the Island – level 10A, and quickly graduates onto Puffin books. I am walking through Stanmore High Street, clutching 17 ½ p, to buy the next Enid Blyton, Noel Streatfield, Nina Bawden, C.S Lewis, but Blyton and her famous five are always number 1. I discover the library soon after we move to Pennsylvania and read 98 books in their summer holiday reading programme. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys rule on this side of the Atlantic, and I cannot resist my brother’s Dr Seuss. A few years later and EB White and Philippa Pearce reduce me to tears and I begin to recognise the power of books. The Bronte sisters entice me back to windswept and rainy Reading and my passion only grows, resulting in my own dreadful poetry and successful playwriting. The local comprehensive looms and Shakespeare comes to the rescue. The theatre takes over my life and I write plays for the BBC and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, but the Royal Court turns me down. Deciding to become a teacher and not an actor is tough, probably not helped by reading Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Settling myself down in the Bodleian Library and re-discovering long lost friends such as AA Milne and Lewis Carroll is heaven. And what of today? I am an addict. It is official. I need to read every day. There are heaps of opened paperbacks waiting for me piled up on my bedside table, poetry collections have gathered in the bathroom, the latest Emily Gravett, Quentin Blake and Bob Graham picture books spill out of the guest room and there is always some text on the kitchen table to be reached for during meals. My colleagues even call me the walking bookshop. And now I am on a mission – to instil a love of books in our own Dolphin School Community, which will, in time, lead to a love of writing…

So, what are you reading?

Kevin Donnelly

Although I could read before I went to school, courtesy of a mother who still devours ten books a week, and is the biggest single drain on the UK’s library budgets, I contented myself with Roger Red Hat until I found “Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster” in a remainders basket when I was seven. For the next seven years I went nowhere without a Doctor Who book, bought them wherever and whenever possible, kept obsessive records of each book – including how many times I had read it ( the record was six times for Doctor Who – The Five Doctors, special silver cover and red spine) – and steadfastly resisted my longsuffering English teachers’ attempts to widen my range of reading. When I was fourteen I wandered into the school library and decided it was time to read Nineteen Eighty Four; in the intervening seventeen years I have read it around ten times and read chunks of it as often as possible. I kept it by my bed for a couple of years.

It was at Oxford that I really began to read: I managed to read everything from Old English poetry, in the original, to the most thesaurus-bending Will Self, in the space of three years. I was forced by my tutor to look at individual words in a depth I had never imagined possible, to the extent that I would construct whole essays on the ambiguity of two or three words of a line of Chaucer.

After that I embarked on a whirlwind tour of world philosophy, giving up on most of it for being just too hard, but allowing some of it to change my life; I built a collection of history, which I loved losing myself in (forgetting when I was, like my hero –see above); finally, this year, I have devoted myself to the reading of maths.

It is possible. But popular maths authors are not as canny as their science counterparts, and continue to stuff their books with far too many equations. Still, it is another area of reading I have found where I have to learn, where I love to learn, and where I know next to nothing.

That’s why I love reading.

Grant Crockford

A Hitchhikers Guide to Reading

I believe (on reflection), that I was quite fortunate to be surrounded by people who loved to read as I was growing up. My Grandfather saw reading as a passport to the world. “You could travel somewhere,” he said ‘without leaving your seat.” To read was to be empowered. It was he who shared Hemingway, F. Scott-Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Harper Lee with me and these experiences, I will always treasure. Although television was around, my family did not have one until my early teens. I must admit unfortunately, that once it did come into our lounge, I really did try and make up for lost time.

As my father worked away for several months at a time, and being the eldest brother in the family….I was in charge- regarding all forms of reading. This meant: shared book experiences, listening to my brother’s monotone voice as he read from his special school “Reader,” or my sister wanting to hear “Winnie the Pooh,” (for the hundredth time) or she could not or would not sleep! On occasion, my youngest brother provided the sanctuary I needed…he was only 3years old, but he enjoyed me sharing my books with him. I was a Library Monitor at school, not a very prestigious job –stamping the date on the back of books, going around and finding the students who had not returned their library books on time, and bringing them to the librarian. She was a rather fierce woman whom I believe, really didn’t like children but simply loved books. As punishment for late returns students were not allowed to borrow any books for two weeks, the final insult was her placing their borrowing cards into her top drawer. The only benefit was that as a monitor you could take ‘new’ books or resource books home to read. I happened upon a gentleman by the name of Lord Horatio Nelson, from here on in, history was mine!

Over the years I have read (like many of us) from a wide spectrum of authors and genre but on occasion, I still like to curl up on the sofa with an old favourite, be it Dr Doolittle, Famous Five, Biggles or my little fat, furry friend Winnie the Pooh sans sister. The ability to read is one we all must cherish and be ever vigilant, so that every generation is provided with the opportunity to do so.

Joanna Head, Pre-Prep English Teacher

I grew up on the border of England and Wales in a town called Monmouth on the edge of the River Wye. According to my mother, from the moment I entered Dixton Gate Primary School, I trailed my teacher asking, “Is it my turn to read next?” Poor techer!

From early days with Janet and John, I progressed to Enid Blyton and Mallory Towers. Somewhere in there were C.S. Lewis and the Narnia stories. The Silver Brumby stories by Elaine Mitchell were read and reread.

As a teenager I remember a prolonged lobe of sweeping epics and adventure stories. While reading ‘Gone with the Wind’ I only ventured out of my room for the odd snack. The epics and adventures eventually evolved into travel writers such as Eric Newby and Paul Theroux and a wish to visit some of these far-flung places. After graduating from university, I spent a number of years working for Student Travel Australia, travelling and sending others on adventures.

In my mid-twenties I qualified as a teacher, following in the footsteps of my father and grandmother before me. For the last 20 years I have kept a book journal. A record of all the books I read over a year – classics, new authors, and old favorites. This has served to remind me that there are so many good books and so little time!

I am passionate about children’s literature. From picture books to teenage fiction (my daughter Zoë and I can often be found sharing books). No one could read ‘Five Minutes Peace’ by Jill Murphy and not laugh or read Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ without weeping.

Like music, books can remind us of different times in our lives. They are a way to learn, travel and escape from the everyday world. I hope as a teacher to show children what a great gift, comfort and pleasure a good story can be!

Nicola Dick-Cleland, Reception teacher

  An Alternative CV

Aged 3, I added the raisins to the Christmas cake mix at my Nursery School (and went home to read Richard Scarry’s ‘Busy, Busy World’).

When I was 9 I wanted to be a Farmer’s Wife with four children & a number of animals (& I read Enid Blyton). By 12, I wanted to be a vet – still the animal focus; no mention of children (reading Louisa May Alcott). At 15 I went through a very earnest, adult-pleasing phase and felt accountancy was the answer (reflected by reading a lot of Zola) - but thankfully moved swiftly through this. Hence I asked the trembling Careers Visitor who braved a herd of 17 year-olds how to go about becoming an astronaut (Nancy Mitford is the author I’d have taken in the rocket). Somehow I progressed to a (gloriously fantastic!) three years reading Psychology (and Evelyn Waugh).

So, thirty years on, what came of all this? Marriage? Yes. (Building conservation, not farming). Four children was down-sized to two. The animal inclinations are currently fulfilled by a chocolate Labrador and a nano-sized cat. The accountancy didn’t add up as a career choice, but I still love playing with numbers. Going into space and discovering New Frontiers? Using my degree and post-graduate courses? Working with people intellectually & emotionally? Being a Reception Teacher at Dolphin provides copious opportunities for these challenges…..but not enough time to read!

Alison Alderson, Year One teacher

A journey towards a love of reading

From an early age I was a confirmed Tom-boy who was much happier out in the middle of the woods exploring nature and making mud pies and dens. My reading choices then revolved around the world of Famous Five and Secret Seven (Enid Blyton). I enjoyed being lost in a world of outdoor adventure and excitement. A love of nature was later to draw me into biology and eventually into the world of scientific research with Research papers and Ph.D. thesis’s to read and ingest and write.

As a teenager ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ (J.R.R. Tolkien) left me imagining myself climbing the heights to save the world (as a person of small statue I had a definite affinity with Hobbits). More recently I have been totally absorbed by the Harry Potter series. J.K Rowling again created a wonderful fantasy world and left me trying to cast spells along with Harry.

When teenage romance happened in my life I found myself lost in the romantic world created by Jane Austin. Her writing spoke to me of Women’s rights. She portrayed a world where you were only perceived as successful if you were married to the right man. This made me determined to succeed in any career I chose regardless of which man I might happen to marry!

Reading never came naturally to me. Words swam on the page when I got nervous and I had to persist as a child to develop a love of reading Charles Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’ at O Level presented me with a hard time to survive reading it. However I loved analysing the text. I still wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of reading to the whole class and now I have a class of my own to read to.

Books have the ability to leave a long lasting impression on the reader. Back in 1971 I first read ‘When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit’ (Judith Kerr), this is a semi-autobiographical story of a young Jewish girl who is forced to flee her home in Germany in 1933 with her family to escape the Nazis, who her father, a writer, had campaigned against. The title of the novel comes from Anna's favorite stuffed animal, Pink Rabbit, which she leaves behind in Berlin, taking along a stuffed dog instead. She imagines Hitler playing with her Pink Rabbit. I have always had a small cuddly animal that I take to bed and I felt a deep sympathy with Anna, for losing her toy as a result of the persecution of the Jewish people.

Animals continue to feature in the books I most enjoy sharing with my class. I love ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury) as the children enthusiastically create all the sound effects for me. ‘Ten in the bed’ (David Ellwand) in which 10 bears fall out of bed is a lovely way to explore ‘one less’ in Maths and we also use the book to help our bears (and ourselves!) keep fit too. I now love exploring books with my class and I hope that all those I teach will persevere, and given time and encouragement, and develop a true and lasting love of reading.

Debby Warren, Year One teacher

English was always my favourite subject at school and I want to give our small Dolphins the necessary skills to make it theirs too. One of the best things about teaching is sitting down with an expectant, eager group of children and getting wrapped up in a good book!