There is something about the physical feel of a book in your hands that will never change. While I’m yet to purchase a kindle – and the requisite pair of glasses to go with it – I don’t fancy taking one into the bath (apologies to our Librarian, I don’t take books into the bath. Honest.) Books, however, can go everywhere.
I remember distinctly while at university heading out with friends to a bar in Hull. The impromptu night saw me reading Camus. Taking the book with me, I never managed to finish it as a stream of strangers felt free to approach me and offer their opinions of ‘The Outsider’. Yes – everyone recognises the cultural capital of books, even those who find reading a chore.
Recently every pupil in our school was published in a hard-copy book. This was an ambitious project. It begun a year ago with the notion that ‘we just get every pupil to type up their stories onto word, drop them into our shared area, and upload them to the lulu.com website’.
Things didn’t prove to be that simple. Typos – rising like the infected multitudes of a Romero flick – are everywhere. Documents are dropped everywhere, not just into the hand-in folder. And invariably not every pupil names their story.
See this googledoc for the suggested project plan.
We are doing this again, but this time making these changes:
1) Having all pupils published in only one version of the book.
2) Publishing poetry instead of prose.
Keep tabs on this.
Pupil comments on the books so far? Will comment them on this post.
Tremendous kudos must go to our bursar and our office manager for managing the money. Without them, organising the fiscal side of things would have been somewhat overwhelming. You need great people behind to scenes to do anything like this.
