Rehan Alam, Georgia Rose and Rae Gee - February Brilliant Books at the Free School!

Four sessions have come and gone since the last blog so here's a bumper edition.

Week 3 

Personal Development Specialist Rehan Alam visited the group. 

An inspirational personal development specialist, Rehan talked about his favourite book - "The Lord of the Rings" - and cleverly mixed some of the mythos, the characters and the plot into a series of inspiring messages for the pupils to digest. 

An entertaining speaker, and passionate reader, Rehan works with schools and businesses in a training and motivational capacity and the pupils were highly entertained by his delivery.

http://www.inspiringtraining.co.uk/author/inclusiontraining/

If you've not read Lord Of The Rings, then you are missing a treat. Classic example where a film simply doesn't do the book justice - LOTR is a feast for the imagination - and I had several conversations with the pupils about this - after all, this is what Brilliant Books is all about.

Week 4 was me - but you've seen my graphic novel/comic skit before so moving swiftly on, on Week 5, we welcomed the brilliant Georgia Rose coming all the way up from the Beautiful South - those Tolkein-lauded shires of Cambridgeshire.

For new readers, Georgia is the author of popular romance/suspense novels "The Grayson Trilogy", a prize winning short story writer, and, more importantly, a big friend of Brilliant Books. 

Georgia spoke about writing, being an author and what it takes to be a writer - the sacrifices, the pain and the rewards! 

This group contains more readers than we usually see, but quite a few pupils struggle with writing - not English per se, but writing. So Georgia inspired them with tales of the writer's life and then, in session two, supported them with their stories.

Then, the team led a session on Metaphors, Similes and Allegories which produced quite a few interesting examples!

Georgia is a prodigious reader and advocate of children's literature and imparts a passion for reading wherever she goes. 

We'll look forward to seeing her when the next Brilliant Books session comes on stream later this year.

Week 6 saw the return of the Queen of Steampunk herself, Rae Gee.

Rae writes Steampunk - a popular genre whose luminaries include the stellar Alan Moore (writer of Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Kim Newman who wrote massive bestseller Anno Dracula.

This is Rae's second visit and she read from HG Wells "The Time Machine." 

Wells was Victorian England's biggest fiction writer and, along with Jules Verne, is credited with being Steampunk's biggest inspiration. I know this, because Rae informed the group of the same. Rae brought in some superb materials, including this magnificent book full of Steampunkian designs, particularly a mechanical elephant here.

The group then worked on their short stories and were filmed reading extracts - an activity some clearly enjoy!

Activities in this blog are all
supported by the Big Lottery Fund

Rae and Georgia are featured authors in the Access All Areas anthology which supports Brilliant Books along with such popular names as Brenda Perlin, Sally-Anne Wilkinson, Clare Stevens, Katie Oliver, Lorraine Devon Wilke, Annie Lyons, Lynne Morley, Phil Pidluznyj and yours truly, Mark Barry.

Next week, popular Valentine Nkoyo returns for a second shift at the Free School and for Week 8 music critic and reviewer Dom Gourlay brings Nottingham's finest electro-pop combo, the up-and-coming April Towers to bring down the curtain on this year's Brilliant Books at Nottingham Free School.

Until then - get your kids off those consoles and behind the pages of a good book! See you Wednesday.

Mark


Links:

Georgia Rose Author Page

Rae Gee Author Page

Queen of Steampunk Rae Gee visits Brilliant Books!

Allow me introduce you to Rae Gee.

Noted and traditionally published Steampunk author, based in Leicestershire and with big contacts in the US, Rae didn''t just come up to Nottingham with books. As you can see, she brought props to add context to her book choices, which were:

 and the Time Machine, Rae's favourite two books and a major influence on her career as a writer. 

You can read War of the Worlds here:

http://www.authorama.com/the-war-of-the-worlds-26.html

and though we didn't get the chance to listen to it, you can listen to Jeff Wayne's magnificent War of the World's soundtrack here.

(Rae and I have many American friends and we would just like to point out that the original Martian invasion was in Surrey not New York, contrary to what you and Mssrs Cruise and Spielberg might think :D - Ed!)

Reluctant reader project
 Brilliant Books is funded by the Big Lottery Fund - your £2 goes
further than you think.

Rae read from War of the Worlds and then talked steampunk and science in general. Topics included Edison, the first ever recorded music and aliens. She discussed the legendary Skinwalker Farm in Utah, which is rumoured in some circles to be a portal to another galaxy and thus heavily guarded by the authorities in the US. You could see many of the children were inspired by what novelist Rae had to say about the subject and I can imagine quite a few of them will choose steampunk and science fiction as a reading genre.

Rae will be blogging about her experience this weekend and I shall include it here when it is available. 

http://veetu-industries.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/brilliant-books-28th-january-2015.html


The kids really enjoyed her patter and obvious knowledge of the sector.  Afterwards, we moved to the classroom to develop their stories.   They did some more readings - one of the major delights of this programme is the willingness of the kids to get up and read what they have written to their peers.

Many pupils struggle with this in formal lessons, but on Brilliant Books, they can let their hair down and be a star for thirty seconds or so. And Phil, Shellie and me have been seriously impressed by the talent on display.  

And these young people are REALLY getting into their stories (for publication in Scribes of Seely II in April). 

All in all, it was a terrific afternoon. I'd like to thank Rae for travelling north to see us - we both enjoyed a healthy lunch too :D - and I am sure she'll be back on future projects. She's the second author to host a Brilliant Books session (after the talented Georgia Rose in October) and they definitely add something different to the mix. 

It is noticeable that the young people seem seriously interested in what authors do, in as much as what they choose to read. That's worth noting for the future.

Next week, Phil talks about how he got involved in Brilliant Books on the blog, and live in Sherwood, we have a visit from one of the top education officers at the Nottingham Fire Service. 

Keep reading,

Mark

Northampton based genius Alan Moore's
classic steampunk graphic novel