Galway’s youngest book writers and bookworms were the proud recipients of awards and certificates at a ceremony held at the Radisson Hotel recently, rewarding their writing ability and creative talents in the Scríobh Leabhar and Write A Book competitions.
Judges went through a staggering 4,800 entries from more than 80 primary schools across the city and county. “The sheer number of entries was astonishing this year,” says Bernard Kirk, director of the Galway Education Centre, who organised the hugely successful event, which is now in its ninth year, and has succeeded in getting youngsters to produce some 15,000 titles during that period.
He continues: “First of all you have writing, but you also have reading. The books go back into the classrooms so that, all of a sudden, students in one class could have up to 30 new titles to read.”
Mr Kirk says that he is highly impressed with the efforts of both teachers and children. “Teachers encourage children to use their own imagination and creativity and believe me, they have great talent. We had a book written in Braille last year. Every year, we are pleasantly surprised.”
The Galway Education Centre, which is funded by the Department of Education and organises teacher training in Galway, aims to encourage reading and writing among primary students, but the Write A Book competition is also used as a practical part of the creative writing curriculum in primary schools.
As first time authors, the children write, edit, illustrate and bind the books, with the support of their teachers and classmates. Mary Smith, project co-ordinator and recently retired principal of Scoil Chaitríona, in Renmore says: “We want to teach them all the conventions of writing and this is a fantastic way to do that.”
She says that they always had at least one book on Manchester United. Sport always made its way in. The girls often wrote more sentimental material, but the books could also have subject matter which was quite topical. For instance, they had a very interesting book on adoption this year.
In the English Write A Book, this year’s narrations included titles such as – ‘The Silly Man, Cooking for eight year olds, When you are bullied, The secret life of cows and ‘Old and new farming.
The competition also encourages writing in the Irish language and some of the all-Irish entries included are titles suich as An JCB, Turas go dtí Hollywood, An madra caillte and ‘Mo chat skittles.
“Everyone is a winner here. Everyone gets a certificate for their achievement. Nobody goes home empty handed,” Kirk says..
“Some kids are very artistic so they focus on illustrations. Others love writing. There is something for everyone and they all help each other. All strengths and talents are needed and recognised.”
