BOOK Week landed at Tea Gardens Public School in late August, as fictional and literary heroes united to celebrate literacy.

Highlighting the quintessential importance of literacy in children’s education, Book Week is a chance for kids to express and share their favourite characters and stories openly with others.

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Rachel Cooper, Teacher-Librarian at TGPS, thanked everyone for joining the annual event that celebrates Australian authors, illustrators, and reading in general.

“Did you know that reading for pleasure every day improves a person’s empathy and emotional intelligence, reduces stress levels and has been shown to slow the process of Alzheimer’s and dementia?

“Reading for ten minutes each day, be it the newspaper, comics, recipes or a book, exposes students to more than 600,000 words a year, keeping our brains healthy, improving our general knowledge, as well as various life skills.”

With a theme of “Read, Grow, Inspire”, Ms Cooper created her own costume out of paper to metamorphose into a Book Fairy.

The students took several adventures, including a yarning circle and leaf-rubbing walk based on Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) shortlisted “Our Dreaming” by Kirli Saunders and illustrated by Dub Leffler.

“Book Week was very successful this year with students dressing up, turning our school into a world of books and fairytales,” Principal Mark Clemson told NOTA.

“Where’s Wally could be found in almost every classroom with students and even Mrs Ingram in the outfit – we were inspired by an array of amazing literature and thoroughly enjoyed our first book week parade.”

Superheroes and characters from Star Wars and Harry Potter were popular costumes with students.

Hudson (AKA Where’s Wally) from Kindy said, “I liked wearing the glasses and beanie, I loved having my Mum, Nan, Daddy and Ninny visit me in the classroom afterwards.”

Parents were invited to stay behind after the parade and join their children/grandchildren in classrooms to see some of the amazing work they do at TGPS, including classroom door decorations based on some CBCA shortlisted books.

By Thomas O’KEEFE