A total of 340 students visited the Ingham and Halifax libraries during Children's Book Week recently. With fish, an octopus, a whale and lots of seaweed, the Ingham Library became an underwater oasis. Twelve of the local secondary and primary schools, preschools and kindergartens joined in the “Oceans of Stories” Book Week Celebrations. Children attending not only heard about Book Week and some of the award winning books but they also took part in craft activities and treasure hunts.  

157 potato people; and 120 felt teddy bears were created and 41 kids became pirates upon completing the Treasure Hunt.

All students who attended contributed to the Book Week collage on the foyer windows (See image above). Each student wrote their name on a sea creature and placed it on the windows with our friendly library whale. Book Week Books are available at the library for loan from Monday 1^st September.

Top: Jill Morris and 2003 Zone Finalists

Bottom: Jill Morris and students at workshop

Renowned Queensland author Jill Morris held workshops at Hinchinbrook Shire Library from Tuesday 29th July until Friday 1st August. She is one of fifty authors who conducted workshops across Australia. This year 36,620 students entered the Nestle Write Around Australia competition,  which makes 2003 the competition’s biggest year yet. In total, over 19,000 Australian children took the opportunity to attend workshops and learn more about the art of creative writing which will hopefully fuel a lifelong love of books and writing. 

As part of their prize, the area’s twenty finalists attended their own special workshop with Jill Morris. During their creative writing session they had the opportunity to polish and re-submit their stories for the final round of judging from which the zone, state and national winners will be selected.

Finalists will also receive a backpack filled with Nestlé goodies and a certificate, which will be presented to them at a special ceremony at the library later in the year. Two area winners will also be named at the ceremony. They will receive a collection of Australian books for themselves and a collection for their school library, each valued at $500 and will also be in the running to be named the state winner.

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Web site designed by the Hinchinbrook Shire Library Service with the assistance of the Community Web Publishing Project (State Library of Queensland) and last updated 05/09/2003 .