Ruth Fry: Sharon Dogar on Outreach 2010

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is over for another year and so too is this year's Outreach Programme. We met hundreds of children and young people throughout the 12 events with 6 authors, all of which were fantastic so a big thank you to everyone who took part! This week Ruth Fry, librarian at Peebles High School, joins us to talk about Sharon Dogar's visit to her school.

Our school was chosen for a visit by Sharon Dogar, author of Waves and Falling. I knew that her new book, Annexed, was very different from the earlier books, and dealt with the imagined relationship with Peter van Pels, who with his family shared the space with Anne Frank and her family in hiding from the Nazis.

I wasn’t sure how the talk would go down with a class of S2 pupils, as the subject matter is so sad and serious, but as it turned out, it was a wonderful afternoon: extremely interesting, and very much enjoyed by the pupils, who already knew about Anne Frank. Sharon Dogar first showed the video clip about the book, then described how she researched it, and how harrowing this was. The talk was riveting.The whole class sat in complete silence, mesmerised. It was fascinating to learn about the research, and also to find out how Sharon Dogar combined facts from her in-depth research with her interpretation as a novelist – a real mix of fact and fiction.

Finally, pupils had the chance to ask questions, which showed how deeply they were thinking about the questions raised, and how involved the author was with her subject matter. I would hate to have missed such a special afternoon, listening to an author who presents her work in such a fascinating way, and I’m sure that every other person in the room would agree with me.

You can view the trailer for Annexed below.

Other News:

Cloudberry Castle by Janey Louise Jones will be officially launched on Sunday 26th September. To celebrate, a ballet-themed party at Dance Base in Edinburgh's Grassmarket will begin from 2.30 - 4.30pm. This is a public event for young ballet lovers and their families. Janey, author of the highly-popular Princess Poppy series, will be hosting the party which will be fun-packed with ballet-themed food, drink, games and activities.

To find out more information about the book launch, please visit the Kelpies website.

Just in case you haven't yet heard, Scottish Book Trust were successful at this year's Arts & Business awards in Glasgow on Wednesday. We picked up the award for Young People with our sponsor Scottish Friendly and then went on to win the Sustained Partnership award with Royal Mail. A big thank you to everyone who voted, we really couldn't have done it without your support!

If you wish to see the full list of awards, please visit the Arts & Business website

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get all the latest news from Scottish Book Trust.