At Manor House School, reading is very much a part of daily life for those who are privileged enough to be taught by our wonderful English department. These teachers bring books alive in the lessons with dynamic reading, deep discussions and debates about the fundamental themes and characters running through novels and short stories into which we delve.
Books are everywhere: they influence our favourite television programmes and movies (infinite examples including ‘The Lord Of The Rings’, ‘Cleopatra’ and ‘Divergent’) and since everyone has a favourite movie and television show nowadays, they probably also have a favourite book.
Having been set this challenge to write an article by Mrs Mayes, it led me to explore Manor House School’s favourite reads. Following my interviews, students’ feedback was that their range of enjoyment was vast. Popular reads were Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’, - also one of my favourite children’s books about a boy, boat and island - Suzanne Collins’ ‘The Hunger Games’ which deals with political themes and the class divide of a dystopian society and John Green’s ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, a tear-jerking book showing how a terminal illness can make and break teenage relationships.
David Walliams was also very popular and I must say his story ‘Billionaire Boy’ was another favourite of mine when I was younger. It is now highly regarded amongst the Prep girls. Their most read books are as follows: ‘Magic Puppy School of Mischief’ by Sue Bentley, ‘The Suitcase Kid’ by Jacqueline Wilson and ‘Elephant in the Garden’ by Michael Morpurgo. ‘Funnybones’ by Janet Ahlberg was the most popular in the lower Preps.
‘Girl Missing’ by Sophie McKenzie, and books like ‘Divergent’ and ‘Twilight’ were also favourites, showing that students of Manor House School (Seniors in particular) love Dystopian books that have dark themes full of commentary about our current society and warning of what it could be in the future.
I decided that it would be fun to interview our teachers too and this proved an interesting experiment. Our Physics teacher, Mrs Evans, said she loved a book called ‘I am David’ because it taught her about the war and that kindness is incredibly important. She also loved Roald Dahl as the rhyming schemes fascinated her along with the stories of witches and children who inherit chocolate factories.
Our Chemistry teacher, Miss Brodie, loved ‘Choose-your-own-adventure’ books where one can manipulate the story so it has different outcomes every time you read it, so the story never becomes boring. Some examples of these books are ‘Moon Quest’ and ‘Underground Kingdom’.
Mrs Marriott, our Librarian spoke of her favourite book ‘Black Beauty' by Anna Sewell, which she read as a ‘pony-mad’ ten-year-old. It made her see that horses and other animals have feelings too and how we treat them affects their behaviour enormously.
Our new Maths teacher, Mr O’Neill, loved the second book of ‘The Chronicles Of Narnia’ by C. S. Lewis, ‘Prince Caspian’.
Finally, our history teacher, Mrs St Johnston, loved ‘The Endless Steppe’ by Esther Hautzig, an autobiography about her childhood where she was taken from Poland to Siberia by communists and has to work in horrible conditions. The book now is likened to the diaries kept by Anne Frank, as it tells a story of Jewish deportation.
‘Reading takes you to another world, you can engross yourself in it and it’s very relaxing’ explained Mrs Evans. Other teachers mentioned how literature can move you and is more relaxing than the television (which can mess up the melatonin levels in your brain leaving you with semi-sleepless nights). Reading also helps preserve history and tales as old as time, e.g. history's oldest known fictional story, the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh,’ a mythical poem that first appeared as early as the third millennium B.C. Reading is very important to many of us it seems; it provides escape and feeds imagination. Reading can inspire people of all walks of life to enjoy culture and celebrate language.
I am very lucky to belong to a school where we can read whatever we want with just a trip to the library and a few short minutes spent finding the perfect book.
Marianne E, Year 11.
