Welcome to RARING READERS, the Patron of Reading blog of Captain’s Close Primary School in Asfordby, Leicestershire. This is where
you’ll find the latest news on what I’m doing with the school and reviews of some brilliant books that I think you might enjoy.
It’s your blog as much as mine, so whether you’re a student, a teacher, a member of staff or a parent at the school, I’d love to hear
from you. You can put a message in the comments section beneath each post or, if you , you can write a guest post.

Thursday 18 December 2014

My First Proper Visit and Boggle the Book Elf

Hi Captain's Close

Can you believe that it's been a month since my visit? The last few weeks have flown by!

Here's me meeting a few of you.

It was great to meet you all and share some of my books with you. I was pleased to discover that so many of you are already raring readers. I'm looking forward to hearing about some of your favourite books and hope to help you find some new favourites over the next year or two.

I hear that you've had another bookish visitor in school in the shape of Boggle the Book Elf. Mrs Hancock and Mrs G have told me about him and, based on their descriptions, this is what I imagine he might look like.


If any of you get a good look at him or have your own idea of what he looks like, send me a picture and I'll put it on this blog.

I was sorry to hear about the problem you've had using the internet in school. Now that it's been fixed, I can't wait to hear what you think of The King of Space, the book I chose for my first rapid review. Did you love it or hate it? What were the best bits? Do you have a favourite page? Are there any other books you could suggest to anyone who enjoyed reading it? Click here to post a comment about it.

I was delighted to hear that some of you have already made your own rapid review videos. I haven't seen them yet, but when I have them, I'll put them on this blog. So be sure to come back soon to see if they're here.

In the meantime, I wish you all …

Tuesday 11 November 2014

THE KING OF SPACE • Rapid Review by Jonathan



My first rapid review is of The King of Space, a picture book written and illustrated by Jonny Duddle.


You can find out more about this book and see some of the illustrations on this page on Jonny Duddle's web site. And there are some King of Space activity sheets that you can download for free on this page.

You can download King of Space activity sheets
from Jonny Duddle's web site.

I hope you love this book as much as I do. When you've read it, let me know what you think of it – good or bad – by leaving a comment on this post.

Saturday 8 November 2014

Introducing Rapid Reviews

One of the things you’ll find on this blog is book reviews. Rather than write about books that I think you might like, I thought I’d make some short videos.

I'm calling these videos Rapid Reviews. Here’s a video I made to introduce them.



If you want to have a go at making your own Rapid Review video about something you love reading, here are 10 tips to get you started.

1: “Rapid” means fast, so your video should be under 2 minutes long.

2: The video can be about any sort of reading material – fiction or non-fiction, a picture book, a novel, a comic, an annual, a joke book, a magazine – as long as it’s something you love reading and you think other children might enjoy.

3: Think about what you want to say and write it down before you record the video.

4: If you’re recording the video on an iPod, smartphone or tablet, make sure you hold the phone or tablet on its side so that the picture is wide like this …


… and not tall and thin. Otherwise it will look like this when it's on the blog.



5: START with a quick description of what the book is about. But if it’s a story, make sure you don’t give away the ending!

6: THEN tell us what makes YOU love this particular book? Think of two or three things that make it special and tell us about them. For example:
  • If it’s a story, tell us something about your favourite character and why you like her or him.
  • If the book is illustrated, show us a favourite picture and tell us why you like it.
  • If it’s a non fiction book, tell us an interesting fact you found out by reading it.
  • If it’s a joke book - tell us your favourite joke!

7: FINISH with a summary of why you love the book. For example:
  • I love this book because it’s incredibly funny and made me laugh my head off.
  • I love this book because it’s packed with surprising facts about an interesting subject.
  • I love this book because it’s such an exciting story and I really cared about the characters.
  • I love this book because it has beautiful pictures and the words are fun to read aloud.

8: Make sure you show the book cover in the video. Hold it up to camera while you're talking or use a close up.

9: Don’t worry about recording everything you want to say in one go. One of the great things about making a video is that you can cut out all the bits you get wrong. So if you make a mistake and say something wrong, just pause for a moment and then try saying it again, until you get it right. Then, when you’ve finished recording the video you can go back and cut out all the mistakes.

10: Remember you want other people to read this book. Enthusiasm is infectious – so make sure your enthusiasm for the book shows on the video!



Once you’ve made a video, there are a couple of ways to send it to me. You will probably need to ask a grown up to help you with this:

If you have a YouTube account:
Upload the video to your YouTube account. Make sure it’s saved as “public” in the video settings so that other people will be able to see it. Then email me a link to the video’s YouTube page.

If you don’t have a youtube account
If you’ve saved the video on your computer, smartphone or tablet and don’t have a YouTube account, you can send the video file to me at patron@scribblestreet.co.uk using the free file transfer service at https://www.wetransfer.com. Make sure you fill in the sender address, so I know who the file is from, and the message box, to let me know that it's a Rapid Review video.  If you're using a smartphone or tablet, you might need to save your video to your photo library before you can send it with WeTransfer.

And remember if you want to send me a written review, a sound recording, a photograph, picture or comic strip that shows how much you love a book, I’d love to have them on this site as well. So email them to me or send them by WeTransfer.

Thursday 18 September 2014

My first visit

I made my first visit to Captain’s Close School this week to meet with Mrs Hancock and Miss Gackowska and talk about what we might do to encourage an enthusiasm for reading in the school.

I love Lego – it’s my favourite toy – so when I saw the collection of Lego mini-figures in Mrs Hancock’s office, I thought we’d probably get on, and I was right! We had a great meeting and I’m really looking forward to working with the school.

After the meeting, Mrs Hancock took me on a quick tour of the school and I got to meet some of the staff and students and even the school rabbit. I’ve forgotten his or her name - so perhaps someone can remind me in the comments box below this post.


I was thrilled to see that you already have a display board about me.


I was also very impressed - and a little jealous - of your cardboard cave.


I love building things out of cardboard. Here’s a cave I made for one of my daughter’s birthday parties.


It’s not as impressive as yours, but I did make this dragon to go with it! One of the party games involved throwing balls into the dragon's mouth.


I was even more impressed by your Hobbit Home and can understand why Mrs Hancock is so proud of it.


I’ll have a chance to meet you all properly when I visit the school some time after the half-term holiday. So see you then!