Reading is not an activity; it is a journey into a world of imagination, interest and excitement. For the children at Oasis Academy Skinner Street (OASS), this could not be more true. They have created the World Book day Display to re-live that journey through texts, inspired by the books they read from Early Years all the way to now.

The Year 6 children decided that they didn’t just want to create a display; they wanted to create a “moment in time”- something that would welcome the entire school into the library but also a space for children, adults and parents alike to feel themselves in worlds they have known; like recalling an elusive memory still dancing in their minds.

After surveying the whole community to find out what the favourite books were, Kylie in Year 6 came up with the idea, “imagine if you could capture your favourite stories and bottle them up in a locked jar, how amazing would that be?”

The answer is; amazing indeed! The main idea was to make a breath taking, colourful display which was inspired by the BFG dream bottles with lots of story classic characters. The community brought forth some wonderful choices and began to show those bottles in their minds were there, just hidden or forgotten, and it was time to bring those wisps of imagination back to life.

With so many wonderful choices, Year 6 chose book titles to represent in different ways, working collaboratively to portray in their own magical, creative way. This soon became a journey of discovery for all of us; our school was made up of Children of Books, under our noses the whole time.

Holly, in Year 6, put it better than any of us adults could ever have put it,

“Our main idea was an important one, our message was to inspire children to read and I feel like it will have a big impact on the children that go to our school. Children that don’t read, or read the books that we have chosen to express through art, get to be inspired by our display and therefore are encouraged to read some of these popular books that children and even adults love. Our display is one of the most important ones that we have done. Not only because children at OASS are putting what they love on it, but because of the incredible books we have chosen to inspire. Another reason why we made this display is that this is the first year we have ever had a library and the teachers gave up their staff room so we could have one; this is our way of saying we are grateful and we are proud to be a School of Books.”

Year 6 finished with a poem to encapsulate why they are a School of Books:

Books are read in different places

Put a big smile on our faces.

Let’s get ready 1, 2 ,3.

Lots of books for you and me.

Images of our work

Picture 1 : Collage of images of the children creating the display

Picture 2: Collage of images of the children creating the dragon.

Picture 3: Collage of images of some of our finer detail (all hand made by children)

Picture 4: Panoramic of whole display

Picture 5: Collage of details of display