Year 8 girls at the Marist Senior School have contributed to writing a special short story as part of an ‘e-book’ for World Book Day.

World Book Day is an annual initiative held to celebrate books and reading.  To coincide with the event held on 5 March this year, the Education Library Service (ELS) ran e-book initiatives to encourage young creative writers to put their heads together in writing a short story. 

From Monday 2 – Thursday 5 March, the ELS in Berkshire invited children from 28 local schools to participate in writing 7 e-books.  Four schools were each responsible for writing a single chapter on an allotted day which would ultimately complete a single e-book.  Working in groups to a brief that each chapter should be 300-600 words long, Year 8 girls from the Marist Senior School were responsible for writing the final chapter and title of the fifth e-book in the series – book ‘E’. 

Over the four days, the schools responsible for each chapter wrote and submitted their creative writing by 4pm on the allotted day.  Each school wrote their chapter and then forwarded it to the next participating school to continue the story.  One line was supplied by the ELS to set the scene for the first chapter written on Monday 2 March which was to begin with the line: ‘I don't think that I will ever be able to tell anyone about what happened in the library that day - no one would believe me anyway.’

The story line in book ‘E’, “The Essence of Time”, concerns two central characters, Poppy and Travis, who discover their families are linked by a grisly historical feud.  They learn through an ancient reference book that one of Poppy’s ancestors, Lily, met an untimely death.  Her forlorn ghost visits them in the library to seek appeasement.  Through the pages of the reference book, unsavoury spirits appear to prevent Lily from finding the peace she seeks and to make life uncomfortable for the hero and heroine. 

Mrs Liliana Barnard, Librarian at the Marist School said ‘World Book Day and the ELS initiative are creative ways of encouraging young people to visit libraries.  Not only that but the exercise enables them to engage in teamwork and decision making while giving them the opportunity to use a wide array of reference materials available in the library.  Getting students involved in reading and writing in this way enables them to see that libraries can be exciting places, not just filled with antiquated books.’

The e-books can be read in full by clicking here.