There was something for everyone to get involved in during our week of World Book Day celebrations. 

We started the week off with a bang, with a fabulous Japanese tea party, which our incredible catering team put together for us, complete with delicious green tea cakes and snacks, and gorgeous cherry blossom and origami decorations. While the students happily ate their treats, they had the option to take part in an origami workshop or a calligraphy workshop, creating some gorgeous decorations for the Library. The Japanese theme was a nod to the book Tsunami Girl.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the reading reps ran a pop-up bookshop for our Sixth Form over in the Sixth Form Centre. Our students had curated a selection of fiction and non-fiction from Brighton's Feminist Bookshop to sell to their peers, and this was a great opportunity to stock up on reading for pleasure and academic extension alike. 

Thursday was the main event, and students across the school came in dressed as their favourite book characters to raise money for St Mark's Library stock. It was fantastic to see some of the teachers also getting into the spirit! A photobooth in the Library meant that we've been able to capture some of these amazing costumes for posterity.

Year 8 and 9 were thrilled to have a talk by Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutuswada, the author and illustrator of the novel Tsunami Girl. During the talk, they discussed how they had come to work together through Julian reaching out to Chie and giving her the opportunity to process her trauma over the 2011 Japanese tsunami by working with him on telling its story. The talk was inspiring, reframing our understanding of what resilience is, and how people can rebuild their lives after disaster, but it is okay not to be okay in so doing. Years 10 and 11 were able to have a go at Creative Writing and Manga in workshops which they elected to participate in. The creative writers worked on spooky stories inspired by abandoned locations and traditional Japanese ghost stories, whilst the Manga illustrators had the opportunity to create their own Manga character.

And finally on Friday, we had an Academic Lecture from Lauren James, who showed us how the detail and precision of the scientific method can lend colour and credibility to fictional worlds. What a fantastic week!