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Year 9 British Library Trip: Malorie Blackman Posted on: 23/02/2024

Year 9 British Library Trip: Malorie Blackman

    This week a group of Year 9 students visited the British Library to see Malorie Blackman in conversation with illustrator Dapo Adeola. She answered questions submitted from schools around the country, on topics such as her inspirations, advice for writers, and weighty subjects such as institutional racism. The audience gained fascinating insight into the writing process, authors’ earnings, and how to deal with rejection when approaching publishers: Malorie received 82 rejection letters before her first book was accepted for publication! Every school attending received a beautiful edition of “Noughts and Crosses” specially produced by the Folio Society.
Book of the Month - December Posted on: 8/12/2023

Book of the Month - December

  For December’s Book of the Month we are going back to 1813, and what I call ‘the OG rom com’, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1775-1817). Mr and Mrs Bennet belong to a social group known as ‘the genteel poor’, they have social standing but not a great deal of wealth, and no son to inherit what they do have, instead they have 5 daughters. It is imperative that they marry off their daughters to ensure their financial security and set about immersing their offspring in social gatherings to introduce them to eligible bachelors. 2 of these men are Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham. In this social satire featuring a big cast of characters, Austen weaves her way through upper class English society, featuring among it an unattractive suitor who will keep the Bennet estate within the family (Mr Collins), a melodramatic mother (Mrs Bennet), 2 cynical and intelligent sisters (Jane, and our heroine Elizabeth), a flighty teenager (Lydia Bennet), and a group of mean girls (Mr Darcy’s sisters). These characters could just as easily exist in a modern romantic comedy. This book may be more than 200 years old but it still offers a giggle, and a look into a time when writers were evasive about the provenance of an individual’s wealth (most likely slavery, see Said’s Orientalism), and women were essentially commodities.
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