Merry Christmas From the Library!

In our last post of 2019 we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and above all a Christmas holiday filled with books! Remember to borrow six books to read over Christmas. Happy reading and see you in the new year.

And the winners are...

We now have our six winners for the Christmas bookmark competition! Congratulations to the winning designs. These six bookmarks are all available from the library until the end of term.

Jovita 7H

Clara 12A

Zarah 7H

Lucy 7T

Sophie 8H

Susannah 7G

Festive Activity at the Library

We are very much getting into the Christmas spirit at The Grey Coat Hospital Library. Here is a rundown of some of the activities on at the library leading up to the end of term.

Elf on the library shelf

This Christmas season we are joined by Elvis our Christmas elf (his brother Norbert has charge of upper school library). Every day of December will see Elvis moving around the library and wreaking havoc! 

We also have some Christmas themed colouring at the desk, which is a fun way to help everyone relax and get into the festive spirit.








Secret Christmas book borrowing

 Back from last year by popular demand! To create a mystery book students select a book that they really like, write a cryptic clue for that book on a label and take it to the desk to be wrapped. Then students can borrow a mystery book based on the clue to unwrap over Christmas. 












Our mystery books also make a lovely addition to our new festive fireplace display.

 Christmas bookmark competition

Our current competition is designing a festive bookmark for us to give out in the library. We 
have decided on choosing six designs as our winners but we have had so many fantastic entries it is definitely going to be a difficult one to judge!















We are also increasing the maximum number of books each student can borrow from four to six to ensure that the Christmas holidays will be as cosy and bookish as possible. Happy reading!

A Pupil Librarian Update

Congratulations to our Year 8 Pupil Librarians who have now passed probationary training with flying colours! Our shiny new student librarian badges have arrived and we are really looking forward to giving them out.

At this stage our pupil librarians have shown that they can organise the trolley accurately and re-shelve returned books correctly. Recent tasks our pupil librarians have excelled in also include picking out new books for us to order for the library, learning how to barcode and tag new books that have arrived at the library to be processed, adding the correct coloured label to the spine of our books and reinforcing books with plastic so that they remain in the library for as long as possible. They have also put up beautiful displays and helped to select books for promotion in the library. Our Year Nines are now gaining confidence staffing the library desk and in all aspects of book processing.

All this excellent work is leading up to the Pupil Librarian’s Training Day in December where our pupil librarians can learn even more and meet a visiting author!

It is lovely to look back at the letters our current pupil librarians wrote when they applied for the role and see how much they have learned and how much the enthusiasm they displayed in their writing really shines through every day when they are in the library. Keep up the good work!

Magical Winter Reads and Neglected Books in the Library

The reserves list for Karen McManus’ One of Us Is Lying is currently eleven people deep and counting. We have ten copies of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas in order to try and meet the demands of our students, yet the book is still rarely to be found on the library shelves and Raina Telgemeier’s latest graphic novel Guts is quickly proving just as popular as her well thumbed previous work.

We are beyond proud of how much the students at Grey Coat use the library and always love to hear girls recommending books to each other and to see them excitedly approach the desk to collect a title that they have been waiting for for weeks. Yet so many of our favourite books remain overlooked in favour of new and popular titles and seem to never be chosen by students. So, we decided to draw attention to these brilliant neglected books and make a display of some of our favourites, starting with the theme of magical reads.

We have been very pleased with how many girls have tried books from the display so far and it is so lovely to have beloved authors like Eva Ibbotson and Diana Wynne Jones front and centre in the library again. Which overlooked books should we celebrate next?

Here are some of Great Coat Librarian’s favourite magical reads that we think deserve more attention:

Knife by RJ Anderson

A fairy called Knife is convinced that interaction with humans is the key to regaining the magic that is fast dwindling from her community. It is warm and really well told story I highly recommend it!

Howl's Moving Castle and Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

We have dedicated a whole section of our display to the brilliant Diana Wynne Jones. In perhaps her best-known story, Sophie searches for the enigmatic and fearsome wizard Howl so he can lift the curse put on her by an evil witch.

We also love Witch Week which takes place in a world where magic is forbidden and Chrestomanci must discover who in his class is a witch.

Sabriel by Garth Nix

An epic magical fantasy that deserves to be read more widely.

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson

A wizard holds a spell casting competition to find the most powerful and villainous witch to be his wife. A really fun and engrossing read.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

12-year-old criminal genius Artemis Fowl kidnaps a fairy to hold him for ransom, little expecting a group of armed and dangerous fairies to retaliate and do absolutely everything that they can to thwart his plans. An excellent novel that deserves to find an audience with young adults today.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy

A magical adventure where Prue must rescue her baby brother who has been kidnapped by crows. This must be one of the most beautifully illustrated books in the library.

Back to school - back to Blogging!

The Grey Coat Librarian has been very lax about this blog...

However, a new school year is about to begin, and revival is in the air!


Our first task will be to welcome the new year 7s, and to collect in the entries for this year's Summer Reading Challenge - Reading To Change The World!
We can't wait to see the posters, bookmarks and Peace Cranes, and to hear about the students' Summer reading.