First reviews trickling in

We don't have 34 Shadowers anymore.  We have 37.  Aces.

After a slight panic that we wouldn't be able to buy in enough books for them all (a perfectly justified fear, as it turned out) the Shadowers were asked to chose one book from the shortlist and buy their own copy to then share.  Today several books were added to the Carnegie shelf with just a name scribbled inside, so a huge thank you to those students who have already been shopping and are so generously sharing their books.  Makes me a little bit teary to be honest *sniffs*  Ahem.  Anyway...

The first reviews are up on our blog and have been copied over to our official Shadowing site, hosted by CILIP.  Plans are in the pipeline for some very exciting student participation this year, with videos, fan fiction (including some from the POV of the Spackle from Patrick Ness's Monsters of Men - awesome) and animated book trailers on their way.  With any luck there'll be a few surprises before the winner is announced too.

It's an odd week this week, with only two school days before we run away to largely ignore someone's wedding, but that means another gorgeously long weekend with plenty of reading time.  Thumbs up, Royals ;)  We're also celebrating the fact that several of our students were out of school at the University of Hertfordshire Creative Writing Competition Development Day, after having their entries shortlisted. Good luck to them for the next stage too.