On Friday 4th November the Y7, 8 and 9s joined their “Cinquièmes” counterparts at Jardine’s Auditorium to welcome UK writer Nicky Singer to the French International School.
Nicky Singer is a popular British novelist and over half-term her novel Island was nominated for the most coveted Carnegie Medal Award as well as for the Kate Greenaway Award, the latter for its illustrations by Child Laureate Chris Riddell who is a fan of her work.
She explained to her spellbound audience the process of turning her novel Feather Boy into a script for the BBC and her play for the National Theatre Island into a novel.
“ It was awesome!” said Gaia Liu (Y7) when asked to capture the atmosphere of the event. “ I read her books over the week-end, they were really good!”.
Lockie Peters (Y9) later reflected: “The stories that she has written are really good, she didn’t tell us too much about it, she just really made us want to read it”, to which Matthew Clark (Y9) added: “I really liked how she included her life stories into her stories, how she got inspired”.
Pupils who had pre-ordered a book got them signed by the author after the talk and she had advice for each budding writer.
In the afternoon the Y7s swapped their usual lessons for a writing workshop.
“I really liked the workshop: she gave me tips and it has given me the confidence to start writing a book” said Sylvie Cayrouse (Y7).
“I learnt a lot of new things and she made me want to read her books” added Imogen Riley (Y7), “ I found the workshop really interesting and I learnt a lot from it”.
Nicky Singer was so impressed by her day at FIS that she said it was easily the most enjoyable school visit of her entire stay in Hong Kong!
She praised our school and its staff for the smooth organisation of her day and our pupils for their impeccable behaviour, welcoming attitude and insightful questions which made her time with us such an enjoyable experience!