MORE than 70 new books have been added to the shelves of Haslingden High School’s library thanks to a grant from the Siobhan Dowd Trust.
The fund, set up in memory of author Siobhan Dowd who is most famous for writing ‘The London Eye Mystery’, supports schools and non-school groups across the country.
Librarian, Susan Bains was delighted when the school was awarded £400 and, thanks to a generous discount from Chorley book shop Ebb and Flo, almost £500 worth of books was purchased.
A team of readers from the school were given the important task of quizzing students about what books they wanted before visiting the book shop and making their selection.
Josh Jeram, 13, said: “I had never been to a bookshop before. They explained about the different sections and what books were suitable for different age groups. Then we got to choose what we wanted for the school library. I went for books in the comedy genre and by celebrity authors that students would know.”
The six students who made the trip also got to select a couple of books for themselves and Josh was delighted to get the final ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ book as it was the only one he had not yet read.
He said: “I like these books because of the humour. I am the same age as the characters and I can see myself as one of the people in the book. Reading helps improve your vocabulary.”
Emma Clarke, 14, selected ‘An Abundance of Kathryns’ as one of her books because she had heard about it before and her mum is called Catherine.
She said: “I have started reading it and it is a bit confusing, but in a good way.
The book shop was smaller than the one I had been to before but it was cute and it had sofas and blankets so when we had picked our books we all sat down and started reading them.”
Mrs Bains added: “It was a wonderful trip out and we had a lot of fun browsing and choosing.”