A Judging Experience

Book Week celebrations didn’t end on Tuesday for McAuley CCS students with the Year five and six students attending a special presentation in the library on Wednesday. Manager Special Projects at Snowy Valleys Council and previous Librarian in Charge, Kristin Twomey, shared the lengthy journey of her role as a 2019 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Judge.

The students were enthralled with not only the amount of books she had to review but also with the process itself.

Ms Twomey who is also the 2017 winner of the Jean Arnot Memorial Fellowship for her paper, Libraries Building Communities: The need for Local Government to acknowledge the role of Public Libraries in Community Building and Engagement, was appointed in late 2017 to help decide which book would win the Eve Pownall Award.  

Ms Twomey explained to the students the books in this category have the prime intention of documenting factual material with consideration given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style. 

“Each month I would receive a box of books with between five and 15 books inside to read and work through the set criteria,” Ms Twomey said. “It was a lot of reading and sometimes hard to decide if the book was worthy of progressing to the next level.

“I read a lot of the books to my son Matthew and a couple of the books we really loved didn’t get through, which was disappointing, but in order for a book to make the shortlist and ultimately be named as the winning book or honourary books, all judges have to agree.”

Ms Twomey shared her thoughts on each of the six short-listed books for the students who then participated in a fun speed-book-dating activity in the restaurant themed library.

Teacher Librarian, Kirsty Roche said having a guest like Ms Twomey speak candidly with the students was an invaluable experience.

“It is not very often a person can capture the attention and imagination of 50 young students the way Ms Twomey did on Wednesday,” Ms Roche said. “Sharing her insight and hearing the explanations prompted the students to discuss what they perceived the merits of each book to be. 

“Anytime you can get young people, book lovers or not, to have meaningful discussions surrounding texts is a win. We were both impressed with how the students were actively engaged in being their own book judges.”

Whilst the CBCA Judges placed the inspirational book Sorry Day in first place, the definite winner for the students was the visually spectacular book, Make Believe: M. C. Escher for Kids. 

- Kirsty Roche, Librarian