Chief Minister's Reading Challenge 2017

The Chief Minister's Reading Challenge is a glorious literacy initiative in the ACT, and yesterday I had the great pleasure of visiting Maribyrnong Primary School in Canberra to chat to the kids about books, books, books--and how very much squirrels love books. These are smart kids. They agreed.

What a beautiful, warm welcome and what a clutch of bright, curious, book-loving kids (a sure sign there's some phenomenal teaching going on). Kids never, ever fail to astound and delight me with their knowledge and the way they think. It was wonderful to spend time with them, and it's great to see so many schools participating in the CMRC every year--from Canberra and our region. I love it when schools place literacy as such a high priority... it's a vital life skill, after all, and can really, truly change lives.

After a wonderful introduction, I took the kids through book type, genre and the book creation process.

I have this REALLY scary shark picture in this brilliant 3D book, which I try to scare the kids with. They never scare. They just laugh. It's so annoying.

This book, Metropolis, always elicits oohs and ahhs. It's 10 feet long. Who wouldn't ooh and ahh? Who wouldn't go bananas over books, in general? They are just that good.

Big thanks to Hannah and Jo from the CMRC for organising this visit, and for coming along. If you want to learn more about the Reading Challenge for your school, just click on the poster below. It's wonderful stuff.