THRILLED

Have been away from home this week - the annual trip to school camp with almost 150 children from the various primary schools local to the high school where I work. The trip, for the small contingent of high school teachers, is about building relationships before the children make their move away from primary school. It helps with the transition and is just one of many things the high school does to ease the move to 'the big school'.

And, unexpectedly, a thrill. A high point for my time at the camp and a huge surprise: I was introduced to a young girl in the dining area; she was eager to meet me but shy; she had worked out that I was the author of her favourite book ever and she was just so overcome with excitement and so wanting to meet me. Wow. To have someone buy your book is such a big deal, and then to be read is such a thrill, but to be so appreciated in this way... amazing and very uplifting. I said she should bring her copy to the high school when she visits and I've promised to sign her copy then.

Then, when I am back from camp, one of our own pupils stops me in the corridor of the school where I work and he says he has just finished reading my book (there are a couple of copies in the library) and he says to me that he thought it was great and he was so pleased with having read it and he began telling others in the corridor about it.

I don't push my own book in my own school... it feels like taking an unfair advantage of the children who receive my help. So, it is brilliant that some of them, unprompted, pick up my book and read it to the end and then, looking back, can say that they enjoyed it... even if it was written by a teacher they know!