Every year, on the first Saturday in May, comic shops across the world hold a special day where they celebrate the medium with Free Comic Book Day.

And this year, to celebrate our own graphic novel library at Wilberfoss, we had planned to hold our very own Free Comic Book Day on Friday May 6th. It didn’t quite work out like that, but thanks to Forbidden Planet International we received a supply of comics for the end of the school year. Much excitement ensued….

….. and after a very manic lunchtime, this was the result!

Thanks once again to Forbidden Planet International for their continuing support of the school graphic novel library.

A few weeks ago, two of our Year 4 boys decided they wanted to write to Michael Murpurgo. And they were delighted to get a reply.

Well, now they’ve decided to respond to that reply…..

Dear Michael Morpurgo,

Thanks for replying to our letter. It is also summer here but it is almost always raining, although we do appreciate the good weather when it comes!
We hope we can see the shows that are on and we are looking forward to the rewriting of Pinocchio.
We hope you like the picture of us two in the school library, with one of your books.

From Harry and Sam.

Comic Football is a new subscription only comic from Pete Wildrianne and Clive Ward. It’s not available in the shops, but the people behind t want to get YOU asking for it, and they’ll make it available to your local clubs to sell.

The comic itself looks pretty good, very much in the Beano/Dandy mold, fourteen strips in all, plus features, competitions and the usual goodies. We got in touch with the publishers and they sent along a bundle for review and for the school library. Our great Year 5 class took copies away and came back with their thoughts……

Joel

Comic Football is the funniest comic that I have ever read! I liked the “Ask The Ref” comic strip especially the part where the ref couldn’t tell which card was yellow and which was red. I also liked “Football Mad Dad” when the dad gets scared of the big, strong PE teacher.

James

Comic Football is a very good comic. The first strip is a very good start, with a cliffhanger! The second strip “On The Bench” is very funny because a footballer thinks he finally might get a match but in the end all he gets is the chance to get the manager a cup of coffee!

Cei

I think Comic Football is amazing! But I don’t get the comic strip “One Day“. (Ed note – it’s the one where Robbie Savage walks on water – and unless the readers are Derby fans or have long memories I can see why it may be a problem!)

Also there’s a mistake on the European country wordsearch; Romania is spelt correctly in the wordsearch but as “Romaina” in the word list (Ed again – how good at spelling are our children! House point to Cei for that one!).

Other than that I think it’s really, really funny. It’s great that there are lots of activities in the comic so that the reader will get stuck into it. I think everyone that gets this comic will like it.

My personal favourite is the strip “The Fanshaws” – it’s hilarious when the neighbour gets so fed up with the noise of the Fanshaws’ cheering that he cuts their TV cable. And even more hilarious when the man’s wife lets the Fanshaws watch the match on their big TV.

Rosie

Comic Football is a good comic. But there was a mistake in the word search where Romania was spelt wrong (Ed – another house point there!). And I didn’t understand the strip when “Savage” walked on water and picked the ball up. I liked the strip “The Fanshaws” best and thought it was really funny when the old man’s wife invites them round to finish watching the match after the old man had cut their TV cable to stop them being really loud! Over all it’s a good comic.

Joshua

I thought it was funny, but I didn’t think it was that exciting. I liked the “Young Guns” strip but want to know the ending – but the other more cartoony strips weren’t as good. I don’t think if I saw it in the shops or my football club I would buy it.

Will

I think that the Comic football magazine was brilliant because it was entertaining and full of facts and fun. There were some facts in there I didn’t know about football before but I do know! I’d like to say thanks very much for sending us the comic book.

Mia

I really enjoyed the football comics because they were short and quite a few were really funny. I also liked all the pages of facts about the game, and the quizzes, puzzles and thought putting all the answers to the quizes on a noticeboard for us was great.

My favourite strip was the very last one; “You’re Not Singing Anymore!” – it was really funny. I would probably read the next issue.

Ryan

I like this comic and think there is a lot of good humour inside waiting to be laughed at. I think the idea of letting village football teams buy them at a reduced price and selling them on to players and parents to make some money is a very good idea.

My favourite comic strip is “Young Guns” and my favourite character is “Junior Ref Julie“. The authors and illustrators are very talented and should be proud of themselves and I think their families will be too!

Marcus

This comic is brilliant! I especially enjoyed “On The Bench” because nobody knew what was happening until at tthe end – “another cup of coffee”. I would definitely get the next issue of Comic Football and would recommend it to all my friends.

And there we are. Overall, I think we can definitely say it’s a hit! Thank you to Year 5 for their time and reviews. All stars! And thanks very much to the people at Comic Football for sending the comic over.

Details on ordering the comic, either a personal subscription or for a team, plus the free download or print copy of the free issue are at their website. A six issue, six month subscription costs £9.99, or go for 12 months for £19.50.

If you went down to Wilberfoss Foundation Stage last week…..

You would have seen a lot of very excited children having their very own Teddy Bear’s Picnic!

One very lovely part of the day was a special “draw your favourite teddy” competition. We picked a couple of our favourites to receive certificates, but well done to everyone – all the pictures were lovely.

And thanks to a very kind donation by Templar Publishing we were able to give a copy of the very lovely Playtime Teddy book to one of our pupils, picked at random from the entries.

Well done to Joshua – I think you can see from the picture below, where he’s just received his book from Mrs Monkman, how very pleased he was to be the winner! And well done to Ben and Jake for their great pictures!

More pictures at the school website. We’d like to thank Templar for their generous donation of Playtime Teddy, as well as their continuing support for the school library.

Following Mia’s great review of The Spider Moon (here on the blog), there have been a load of responses and comments – all saying what a great job she did.

But here’s a very important response – from the author of the book herself; Kate Brown:

“Dear Mia, thank you very much for your review of The Spider Moon! I’m very flattered you chose to review it, and very happy you liked it too! I’m very excited to see more and more comics in schools, and more and more children enjoying comics too.

I hope you continue to enjoy comics as you grow up, Mia!

Thank you once again, Kate.”

This is the great thing about having the library, and having the pupils so excited about their reading. It translates into a love of reading that will see them into adulthood, and also encourages them to become better writers. And in this modern world, they’re more and more aware that it’s not just the teachers at school who are paying attention – they’re understanding that they’re writing for a global audience.

If you write about a book or a graphic novel, there’s a good chance that the author will be reading your work as well!

Wow. Just Wow.

A few weeks ago, Harry & Sam, two of our Year 4 pupils wrote a letter to author Michael Murpurgo, telling him how much they enjoy his work. The letter can be seen here.

And Michael Murpurgo replied…..

Harry and Sam have the email, but we had to share it with you…..

Dear Harry and Samuel

Thanks so much for writing. It is summertime in Devon and I can see there’s a lot to look forward to in the year ahead, lots of festivals and plays and concerts and events all over the place. Keep an eye on the website if you’re interested in coming along to any of these. New ones for me will be the Tagore Festival at Dartington, the Bantry Festival in Ireland and the Kelmarsh Festival in Northamptonshire.

I’ve a couple of new books coming out this year – ‘Little Manfred’ – wonderfully illustrated by Michael Foreman (Harper Collins) is a story of friendship and reconciliation. It is to be launched at the Imperial War Museum in London in June as part of the Once Upon a Wartime exhibition at the museum – don’t miss it!

The other book to look out for is my version of ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ (Walker Books), beautifully illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark . I love adapting and retelling old stories and legends and Emma and I have worked together on Hansel and Gretel as well ‘The Best of Times’ and ‘Aesop’s Fables’.

This year the play of ‘Private Peaceful’ is on tour round the country with a terrific actor Mark Quartley. ‘Billy the Kid’ comes on again at The Unicorn Theatre and there will be a new production of ‘Friend of Foe’ coming soon.

And of course there’s the play of ‘War Horse’ that gallops on at The New London Theatre and has now opened in New York on Broadway! And in October the National Army Museum is creating an exhibition around the book of War Horse which I know will be fantastic! I do hope that you will come and see it.

As I said, there’s an awful lot to look forward to. I’ve got some short stories and a retelling of Pinocchio to get on with which will keep me busy this summer.

Thank you again for writing. I love to hear from my readers – it makes it all worthwhile. Hope you like the picture of me enjoying the shade under a tree in Mycenae!

Here at Wilberfoss, we’ve been very, very successful in building a new and improved library, and a big part of that is the excellent graphic novel library (thanks in no small part to the donations gratefully received – see here for details).

Well, it’s a tremendous success. Our children now love their graphic novels and comics. It’s helping to make them really excited about reading, and all readers, whether strong or not so strong, have something to delight them in the graphic novel library.

This is the very essence of what our literacy strategy is all about – we don’t just want to create children who can read, we want to create children who are passionate readers, who enjoy reading. We do that, and we’ve accomplished something wonderful. But it’s not just their reading that we want to improve, we also want to inspire them to become writers. And one way we want to do that is to bring their writing to a wider audience, to make them aware that what they write, how they write, is important.

Which brings me to Mia….. just one of our brilliant Year 5 librarians. She wrote a quick review of Kate Brown’s The Spider Moon for the library and I was so impressed with it that I asked her to expand on it …. and here it is! It’s also been posted on the Forbidden Planet International Blog, where lots of comic people, writers, artists and readers from around the world will be viewing it.

Ladies and gentlemen… Mia (age 9):

The Spider Moon Book 1

By Kate Brown

DFC Library

The Spider Moon is about a place where things are going wrong – a great disaster is looming over them, a disaster long foretold by the prophecies of the people. And just as in those prophecies the stars have started to fall down. Some people tried to escaping by climbing over mountains or crossing seas, but none returned.

There was one hope for them and that was the “Floating Isle”, just visible high above the land.

The Spider Moon is also the story of one girl; Bekka. She’s part of a group of people with webbed hands to help them swim, and help them in their jobs as divers. Bekka’s training to be a diver, and is about to take her test. Being a diver is very important to the people – they dive for little sea creatures called spinefish that are sent away to make oil. The oil is then used as fuel for the Floating Isle.

Bekka passes her diving test because she gets the sand her teacher wanted her to get… but not before a mysterious encounter with a really big whale! I thought the picture of Bekka and the whale was really great – it really made me think how strange Bekka’s world was….. and how unusual Bekka is; just how did she get back on dry land after her encounter with the whale – and why was completely dry? More and more mysteries!

Bekka’s mother is arrested, but nobody knows why. She’s taken away by the Bird people, who I thought looked a little like angels with little wings on their backs. Bekka and her sister go to search for them, travelling by canoe to get to the Bird People’s huge ship. The water gets too rough for them so they have to swim to the ship.

When they get there they find their mom and try to listen to what everyone is saying. But they get caught and locked up in the palace of the Bird People. A prince lets them out, but it’s not long before they’re caught again!

That is the end of Book 1. I like the pictures in Spider Moon, especially the whale because it’s so huge compared to Bekka.

I really enjoy it because it has a good story to it, and I think the idea of the sky falling down is really good. And I thought Bekka was very brave all the way through.

I think that if you enjoy adventure books and the DFC books you will enjoy the Spider Moon! I think that everyone should read this book. And I really hope to see Book 2 sometime!

Thank you to Mia for that. I think you’ll all agree with me that it was a lovely review. Now, DFC, Kate Brown, any news on Book 2? You don’t want to disappoint Mia surely?

This years residential saw our Year 6 venture forth into the wilds of Lincolnshire!

Okay, maybe not that wild, as they were staying at the rather lovely Caythorpe Court:

As usual, everyone seemed to have a rather fantastic time. There were lots of fantastic and thrilling activities for all the children during the residential, and we’ve lots more pictures over at the school website, but here’s just a taster:

Dear Michael Morpurgo,

We love your books especially Billy the Kid, Born to Run and Shadow.
Well we love every book there just the ones that we want to point out.
You are the most amazing author in the whole wide world.
We wonder what it’s like to be you and we have been inspired to write books about you.
We hope you can reply to this letter and keep writing your amazing books!

Yours sincerely,

Your biggest fans,

Harry and Samuel

Year 4, Wilberfoss Primary School

Coconut

I’m a little coconut x2

Lying on a coco ground x2

Everybody steps on me x2

Then you see im a nut you see x2

I’m a nut im a nut im crazy x2

You’re a nut, you’re a nut you’re crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! x2

Everywhere we go!

Everywhere we go x2

People want to know x2

Who we are x2

And where we come from x2

So we tell them x2

Were from Wilberfoss x2

Mighty mighty Wilberfoss x2

And if they can’t hear us x2

We shout it even louder!!!!!!!!!!!!!! x2

Penguin

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(including actions)

have you ever seen a penguin come to tea

take a look at me a penguin you will see.

penguins attention penguin salute, right arm

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right arm left arm

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right arm left arm right leg

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right arm left arm right leg left leg

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right arm left arm right leg left leg nod your head

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right arm left arm right leg left leg nod your head stick out your tounge

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right arm left arm right leg left leg nod your head stick out your tounge stick out your bum

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by holly