Wilberfoss Primary School

Toon Books are a graphic novel series designed for the youngest of readers. We have a set of 4 in the school library and they’re borrowed and enjoyed by all years.

But when the latest Toon Books release; Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic came through I really wanted to get the views of some children in the right age group. So we’re very pleased to welcome the very latest, and very youngest reviewers – Katy (Age 8) and Lucy (Age 7).

I gave them Patrick, but also gave them a selection of other Toon Books, thinking it would be useful to get an idea of the series. I certainly didn’t expect them to come back with not just one review, but a spectacular four!

Ladies and gentlemen… Katy & Lucy:

Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic and Other Stories

By Geoffrey Hayes

Katy says:

In this book there are four stories. My favourite story is the one where Patrick goes to the shop for his mum to get cookies but Big Bear tries to steal his dollar and later his cookies.

The book, and the pictures, are very funny as well – and it was very funny when Patrick is naked after taking his wet clothes off! I really like the big picture on page 5, it’s a very nice start to the story.

Lucy says:

Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic has four stories in it. My favourite one was when Patrick went to the cookie store. In this story his mum asked him to go to the cookie store. On the way he bumps into Big Bear, who tries to steal his dollar, but Patrick escaped. On the way home Big Bear met Patrick again, but Patrick shouted ROAR! And Big Bear as scared.

Another funny story was Patrick being told to have a sleep by his mum but he didn’t snooze at all – but when he went outside to play he did snooze.

Luke On The Loose

By Harry Bliss

Lucy  says:

In this story Luke chases flappy pigeons all around the town crazily shouting YAAAAH! Eventually he climbs up onto a roof and falls asleep and snores loudly until the firemen come to rescue him and return him to his parents. I think this story is funny because Luke and the pigeons cause so much trouble – the best bit was when Luke and the pigeons flipped an ice-cream from the ice-cream seller onto someone’s head!

Katy says:

This book is about a little boy who goes off chasing pigeons in the park. He ends up sleeping on the roof!

It was very funny when the cat thought “I’ll never let my kittens chase pigeons” – and then the cat does exactly that when she saw Luke and the Pigeons on the roof! The book is interesting when the fireman come. I Liked the book very much and the picture were very good.

Benny And Penny in The Toy Breaker

By Geoffrey Hayes

Lucy says:

This story was about 3 mice; Benny, Penny and Bo. Every time Bo comes round to play he breaks most of Benny and Penny’s toys. This time he breaks a bat and a ball and Penny’s favourite toy – her cuddly monkey! When he breaks the bat and ball, the ball goes into Benny’s eye!

In the end Bo made a get well letter to Penny’s monkey and they all played together without any toys. I think this book was very good because they weren’t very sensible and they weren’t too naughty.

Katy says:

Benny & Penny in The Toybreaker is about a brother and sister becoming friends with their cousin Bo. The brother is called Benny and the younger sister is called Penny. Bo is “The Toy Breaker” – who always breaks Benny and Penny’s toys when he comes round to play. But they all become friends when Bo gets stuck in a fence and Benny and Penny help him.

I liked the part when they finally become friends and it is a happy ending. But I also thought it was funny when Bo hits the ball into Benny’s eye! The pictures were funny and they helped to tell the story.

Zig And Wiki in Something Ate My Homework

By Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler

Katy says:

This book is about two friends called Zig and Wikki. They are two strange creatures; aliens from outerspace.

Zig’s teacher wants him to bring in a pet for homework. So Zig and Wikki land their spaceship on Earth and they try to find one there. This means they look at lots of different animals.

I liked it when they got a ride on a lily pad by a frog and it was funny when Zig zapped Wikki instead of the raccoon. The book told you about some animals and the facts were very interesting. The pictures were great and funny.

Lucy says:

In this story Zig and Wikki were aliens who were looking for a pet. But Wikki got them lost in space and they went to planet Earth.

When they got to Earth, there were lots of animals to choose from; a fly landed on Ziggy’s chocolate bar – Zig tried to catch it with a net but catches Wikki instead. He also tried to catch a dragonfly, a frog and a raccoon. They tried to shrink the raccoon but they shrunk Wikki!

Katy made a very good point at the end of all of her reviews – “The pictures are very good – in fact, I couldn’t read the story without them!” I think we can all agree that we’ve got two great new reviewers there! Thank you so much to Katy and Lucy for doing these for us, and we really can’t wait to see what you’ll review next!

Every year, Mrs Weld and Dr Bryce run a very popular, very successful science club for Year 1 & 2…. here are some of the latest pics….

Making Craters!

Al is a man,  he lives in a can

He has a nice tan.

Mi is a boy,  he has bro called Troy

he only has one toy!!!

Lou is 2, he has very few

I need a number 2!!!

By Holly

Hot dogs = Lovely but with onions = delcious, !! NommNomm

hot dogs are scrummy

they go into my tummy

onions are nice

like sugar and spice,

Hot dogs and onions mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

by Holly and Eloise :)

When two year 4 pupils came to me to ask if they could borrow our Romeo & Juliet graphic novels which are really for more confident readers in Year 5 & 6 I readily agreed……. as long as they promised to write a review of the graphic novel. Because that way we can tell if they’ve properly understood the work.

And here it is. So, over to Sarah & Harry of Year 4……

Romeo & Juliet: The Graphic Novel – Quick Text

By William Shakespeare, script adaptation by John McDonald, art by Will Volley

Published by Classical Comics

Review written by Sarah (Year 4, age 9) & Harry (Year 4, age 8 )

“Romeo and Juliet fall in love, but have to keep it a secret.”
“They sneak around because Romeo is a Montague and Juliet a Capulet, two different families who don’t like each other.”

Harry really liked the graphic novel because;

“It had brilliant graphics and good tense bits”.

Sarah thought it was;

“Dramatic and exciting”.

They both liked the characters in the book, with Harry’s favourite being Romeo and Sarah preferring Juliet.

But Sarah didn’t really like the ending:

“horrible – because they were killed at the end”

Thank you so much to Harry and Sarah for their reviews – well done to both of them.

Classical Comics publish a series of adaptations of classic literature in a graphic novel format. Each story is published in three different versions; Original Text, Plain Text and Quick Text:

(Quick Text Version)

(Plain Text Version)

(Original Text Version)

Every year we take part in the Tesco Vouchers scheme. Where you shop at Tesco and get vouchers, secure in the knowledge that they’ll be useful to the school.

Please don’t think we aren’t grateful to you for the vouchers, and of course the items they acquire are always gratefully received. This year we’re buying new datalogging hardware, temperature probes, talking & listening recording packs and a few book packs. And like we said, we’re extremely grateful for your continuing support.

But this year we had a chance to compare the Tesco scheme with a similar voucher scheme run by local independent bookshop Simply Books of Pocklington. And I think the results are very interesting…….

TESCO:
You gave us (at present count) 6680 vouchers.
You get 1 voucher for spending £10.
So that means you spent a whopping £66,800 at Tesco for these vouchers. (Although because they give you one voucher for spends of £10 – £19.99 it’s probable that you actually spent a lot more – possibly up to £133,000!

These 6680 vouchers bought the school £188 worth of equipment. Each voucher is worth 3p to the school.

£188 worth of equipment for maybe £100,000 worth of shopping at Tesco doesn’t seem that much really does it?

To put it in perspective, if you’d have given the school a penny for every pound of that £100,000 you spent at Tesco to get the vouchers we’d have raised a staggering £1000. Suddenly Tesco don’t seem that generous do they?

Now, let’s look at Simply Books and their voucher offer.

You gave us 27 Simply Books vouchers
You get one voucher for spending £5 at Simply Books.
So that’s a spend of between £135 and up to £270

For those 27 vouchers Simply Books give us £13.50 worth of stock. Each of their vouchers is worth 50p to us.

One of these companies is a huge multinational with billions of pounds worth of profits, the other a small local business – but sometimes generosity and size don’t go hand in hand.

AND, if you go to Simply Books you’re supporting a lovely local business. Please pop along to see their new store in Pocklington, with a brand new children’s section. If we don’t start using the local shops we have it wont be long until Tesco is the only choice we have.

The new library would not have been possible without the financial assistance of F.O.W.S., the extremely generous donations from many companies and individuals and the time and efforts of all involved at the school.

We’re very, very proud of our new library, and we’d like to say a few thank-yous…..