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Release your  imagination......
Explore new worlds.    
Make your own stories.

Explore a map-real or fantasy....where do you want to go? Make your own and see where your imagination takes you.

Save childhood

'The best teachers are the best storytellers. We learn in the form of stories.' ~Frank Smith♥

1/28/2014

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Four Kinds of Readers:
"There are four kinds of readers. The first is like the hour-glass; and their reading being as the sand, it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second is like the sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third is like a jelly-bag, allowing all that is pure to pass away, and retaining only the refuse and dregs. And the fourth is like the slaves in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, retain only pure gems."
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” 
― Philip Pullman“A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.” 
― Ben Okri

'A house without books is like a room without windows.' —Heinrich Mann


Some lovely reading quotes today inspired by Charlie Smith sending me the wonderful pic n quote at the top:-)

I'm missing being able to lay out books on shelves and have a proper Storyshack home, to see shelves of books. I too feel a bit 'windowless' without that. Although we are in a rented house with lots of books there are not quite as many as we have either in Storyshack or in our own house. In fact all books (and everything else) have been cleared from our downstairs and taken to Dunstable! I know - how funny. I was born there...I don't think that's why the removal company have taken everything there-it's just their base!!

It is funny not being surrounded by books. I once did some baby sitting for a young lad whose parents liked everything to be very clean and 'just so'. In fact there wasn't really much evidence of having a child in the house at all-something that tugged at my heart a bit. I took some books round to read before bedtime-I'm not sure he'd had a lot of sharing stories together at all. I can remember that room-clinical, stark-no books at all, no books in the house apart from a couple of cook books. It wasn't about money, just about what was important and books evidently weren't. No escape, he had nowhere to imagine, no characters to befriend, no new worlds to explore. The library would have given him this-books to take home, to surround yourself with but, alas, they just weren't part of his world. How sad. So, bearing that in mind and knowing that however much I'd love to it wouldn't be possible to send out books to every child in the land I would urge SCHOOLS to surround their children with books. It might be the only place children can have WINDOWS INTO THE WORLD OF IMAGINATION. Classrooms, corridors, libraries and, of course, Headteacher's offices full of the treasure troves of reading. 

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. "—Groucho Marx
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Genius Giraffes and Super Seals wow Storyshack today...

1/23/2014

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WOW 1st book making STORYSHACK of 2014 at BROOKLANDS Primary school and what a jolly marvellous way to begin the year. Take a look at the amazing creations of Yr 3 and Yr 5 BUT also note some of the techniques they've been using. You have lots of lovely ideas in these pics from shapes, decoration to backing your book and inlays.
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"The Battle for Gullywith"-magic and mystery to be read together

1/20/2014

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This week I have mostly been reading this. It is a magical book,slowly drawing you in to the secrets of Gullywith as you find out more through Olly's eyes. You probably know Susan Hill as the author of 'The Woman in Black'. Don't worry, this is for CHILDREN and is not as scary but it is mysterious and there are parts that you want to read on and on just to reassure yourself it's OK.


 Adele Geras writes beautifully about Susan Hill's beautifully written book so, instead of writing something which doesn't pass muster here is her review:


                                  Home on the strange
By Adèle Geras from  The Guardian, Saturday 12 April 2008



'Susan Hill can turn her hand to everything. She's well known for her novels for adults (I'm the King of the Castle is on many A-level syllabuses), her elegant short stories (The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read), her atmospheric detective stories featuring Simon Serrailler, her sequel to Rebecca, Mrs de Winter, and above all her ghost stories. The Woman in Black is one of the longest-running plays in London's West End, but the novel from which it is taken is even better. Her most recent book for adults is a short and deliciously spooky novella called The Man in the Picture

She has also written books for children, but the last of these appeared in 1995, so a new full-length fantasy novel is an occasion for much rejoicing. It's the sort of book that's sometimes called "old-fashioned", which means that although it's firmly set in the real world of today, the issues that involve the protagonists are timeless and we are far away from the angst-ridden concerns of modern teenagers.

This doesn't mean that Olly hasn't got problems. He has quite enough to be getting on with. He and his family have moved from London to the country, to a strange house called Gullywith. Olly is not sure how he's going to like it there, and his misgivings are compounded both by the usual things that can sometimes make life unbearable in a new house (inadequate wiring, bits of the building constantly needing attention, nothing working properly, none of your own friends around and the whole of the holidays stretching in front of you) and by creepy goings-on in the house itself. For Olly soon realises that Gullywith is no ordinary place. There are stones that move about. There are strange and worrying happenings of all kinds. Soon enough, Olly meets KK, a brave, resourceful, and slightly mysterious girl. She leads him to the home of Nonny Dreever, which is when the fun properly gets going.

It would be a shame to reveal more, but the story from then on gets more and more exciting. We have Withern Mere, the lake from which rises the castle where the Stone King lives; we have a magic book that appears at Olly's bedside; we have midwinter revels and tortoises with topaz eyes. Such wonders would be worthless, though, without real human characters to guide us through the action, and Olly (and his family), KK and the brilliantly named Mervyn Crust keep us firmly anchored in the actual world so that its coexistence with the fantasy universe is made more believable. The Polish builders who manage to make Gullywith habitable fit well into the same story as Nonny Dreever.

The end of the novel promises more to come. Olly's adventures are not over. The book ends with the beginning of the new term at Fiddleup school, the local comp. KK and Mervyn (who is now a friend rather than a nuisance) are there too, and KK looks completely normal until the very last line of the book, in which Hill plants a delightful hint of the magic that lurks under the surface of things.

Parts of the story are scary, but not too scary. Everything is going to work out well in the end. Parents are being urged to read to their children, and the chapters here are exactly the right length for this. This is a perfect family book because the adult reader will share the pleasure of the listening child.'




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Thank you Frank Zappa-so true!

1/15/2014

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Really quite true-I have a back log piling up but it's much nicer than having a back log of paperwork or 'orrible jobs. Lots to read. Just finished Melvin Burgess who is a thought provoking writer for the teenage market predominantly. I do agree with Philip Pullman when he says no such things as children's stories they are good stories full stop BUT obviously content means they're not suitable for ever age sometimes. This is one of those.
It's a disturbing read. You do want to read on certainly but with an increasing sense of foreboding. It's a story highlighting our obsession with celebrity culture and looking great. It's a story relevant more perhaps now than ever before and it's worth reading. I can't say you'll feel uplifted when you've finished. You might even feel more confused. However, it's worth a read but be warned...it's not a cosy one!

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Book cheer for the New Year :-)

1/6/2014

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Lovely lovely books for the New Year. Seem to have many many on the go at the mo. Think it might be something to do with needing to escape from talk about tidal surges and logging soggy goods! So together we are enjoying the wonderful, enchanting and just brilliant 'The boy who swam with Piranhas' by David Almond. It just needs you to pick it up, open it and you'll read it in one fair swoop I think. "It all started when Simpson's Shipyard shut.  Simpson's had been on the river since the year dot. Blokes that lived by the river had been working at Simpson's since the year dot. Stan's dad had worked there until the accident.  Uncle Ernie had worked there since he was a lad, just like his brother and their dad and their dad's dad and their dad's dad's dad. Then - kapow! - it was all in Korea and Taiwan and China and Japan.  So Simpson's gates were slammed shut and the workers were given a few quid each and told to go away and the demolition gangs moved in. No more jobs for blokes like Uncle Ernie. but blokes like Uncle Ernie were proud and hard-working and they had families to care for." So what did Uncle Ernie do?
"..........and that was the start of Ernie's great venture:  Pott's spectacular Sardines;  Pott's Magnificent Mackerel;  and Pott's Perfect Potted Pilchards." 
READ on lovely storyshackers for as the Sunday Times says: 'THIS BOOK WILL MAKE HEARTS SING'.

From I think perhaps 9+ we go to a dear little chapter book 'The invisible Boy' by Sally Gardner which, I think  also raises spirits and smiles for younger children 7 upwards I would say. An alien helps a scared little chap find courage and confidence and finds lots of bottles of tomato sauce to take back to his alien mum who loves the stuff.  



2 for the New Year.....and a pictures of piranhas from Colchester zoo-I'd never really thought about what they look like but said piranha wouldn't bare its teeth for us when taking the pic so you have to imagine!!




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    Sarah Gallagher

    Avid reader, sometimes a headteacher AND founder of Story shack. A place where  you can release your imagination and see where it takes you....
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