Every year since 2015, Emanuel School has entered the Trinity School Book Award (TSBA), a reading challenge aimed at pupils in Years 6 to 8. The event has continued to flourish with significant numbers of pupils attempting ‘The Six Book Challenge’.

This year the panel of Trinity School librarians who select the titles could not decide on a final shortlist, and as a result were delighted to expand the competition to ‘The Seven Book Challenge’ for Years 7-8. For Year 6 we have remained with six books and have provided a wider range to choose from.

Pupils participating need to have read the novels, roughly, by the end of January and there will be individual year prizes for the best reviews and creative responses to the books. Our outstanding submissions will be entered in the multi-school competition of around 30 schools. Emanuel usually does very well in the later stages and last year won major prizes in both categories.

We have multiple copies of all the books available for borrowing from the Click & Collect point in the Library with the theme of “Being Human: Who am I?” interconnecting the stories.

The seven selections offer a stunning variety of perspectives on life; ranging from a homeless boy living in a camper van (No Fixed Address) to an unlikely friendship between a Syrian refugee living in Glasgow and a troubled Scottish girl (The Fox Girl and the White Girl). There is also a strong historical and multicultural representation, with a moving leprosy themed story set on a remote island in the Philippines (The Island at the End of Everywhere) and a Second World War tale which focuses on the plight of Indian soldiers who experienced racism (Now or Never) from their fellow soldiers during the conflict. For a page-turning, genre-bending science fiction thriller, look no further than Nowhere On Earth, while crime lovers will find much to enjoy in High Rise Mystery a ‘who-dunnit’ set in a south London housing estate. Finally, for those who enjoy some light relief and a laugh, Inkling is hard to beat.

The four supplementary choices for the Hill form section are all slightly easier reads, but these pupils have a completely free choice from the eleven books. Troofriend looks at artificial intelligence, Wink is a moving look at a boy who develops a rare form of eye cancer, Tall Story is a baseball-themed drama about a girl with an exceptionally tall brother who joins the family in England from the Philippines and the Boy in the Tower is a south London science fiction thriller inspired by the classic The Day of the Triffids. Please contact Mr Jones if you have any further questions about any of the books.

There are two videos on the library Firefly page where Mr Jones discusses the books in more detail. The TSBA gives reading a tremendous focus and the 2020/21 selection is one of our strongest yet.

A selection of pupils will attend the awards ceremony which is being hosted in March next year by Ibstock Place School, with the opportunity of meeting many of the shortlisted authors.