Pick a Winner! or The Enfield Tales

A Librarian, an Adviser and a Teacher report on an experiment in the bringing together of children and books

Pick A Winner is a reviewing group for London Borough of Enfield Primary and Special teachers. Four meetings are held a year, at half-termly intervals. At the first meeting, the Librarian presents a collection of about 120 fiction titles to the Teachers who may each then borrow up to ten titles to use in the classroom. At the subsequent meetings, the Teachers talk about the books they have borrowed and bring written reviews by teaching colleagues and children. All the reviews are collected together at the end of the school year, edited by the Advisory Teacher, published as a booklet and distributed to Enfield schools…

The Librarian’s Tale

I had felt for a long time that librarians tend to select fiction in isolation from their audience and it was in response to this that Pick A Winner was conceived. Librarians are specialists on children’s books and build up an enviable knowledge and expertise, but lack the opportunity to introduce literature to actual readers. Our role is often limited to recommending titles or authors. We’re rarely there to experience children’s responses at first hand.

Teachers, however, enjoy a unique opportunity to experiment with what their pupils read as well as a superior understanding of the reading level reached by the individual child… but often lack detailed knowledge of the literature. The purpose of Pick A Winner is therefore to acquaint teachers with the best as well as the most recent writing for children.

In the early sessions of Pick A Winner, my priority was to promote those authors whom I considered to be insufficiently well-known, but who were outstanding children’s writers. I try to make the collection as wide-ranging as possible and, even before the National Curriculum documents confirmed the wisdom of doing so, I believed that children must be given the opportunity to sample stories in a multitude of different forms, such as picture books, short stories, traditional tales, poetry, dual text and pop-ups.

We’ve now established a core group of very knowledgeable teachers who enjoy the newest and most innovative books that have been published within the period since we last met. Award-winning titles feature frequently and I’ve gradually begun to use this group to pioneer some truly oddball books, especially those which are really pushing out the boundaries of imaginative fiction for children.

The learning process has not been one way either, for over the years I’ve become aware of how storybooks are used by teachers as learning tools, not simply through the sheer enjoyment of story, but as extensions of our understanding of the world around us. I now see an almost infinite number of possibilities in the texts and pictures for curriculum work. Infant teachers have used Dearest Grandmama for the history curriculum, and The Orphan Boy and The Whales’ Song for the geography curriculum.

Of the many anecdotes recounted by teachers my favourite concerns a book which we knew might be difficult to promote in the public library, but was nevertheless worthy of special attention: The Spell Singer and other stories, a collection of stories, each of which takes a form of disability as a starting point. The collection was borrowed by a boy who was not normally motivated to read alone. He had a step-sister who was severely disabled and when he read one of the stories, according to his teacher, he simply fell in love with the book. ‘It made him realise what his sister must go through. He read the story to his sister and was close to tears, so strongly did he identify with the characters in the story. Eventually, with some encouragement, he presented the book to the class and from then on, the book was never in the classroom but was passed round from pupil to pupil.’

That, for me, is what Pick A Winner is about.

Lucy Love

Principal Librarian, Education and Youth

The Teacher’s Tale

Pick A Winner definitely helps continuity of access to books throughout our primary school. Older children and their teachers recommend books they have read which they think might be enjoyed by younger children and the younger children do the same for their older peers. The children’s views are shared by the whole school. For example I chose Six Dinner Sid for my class and after I’d read it to them a lot of children wanted to read it themselves. When I realised its popularity, I recommended it to other members of staff and so we shared it around.

Pick A Winner helps to supplement the schools’ resources by introducing teachers to new books and giving them more ideas about what to buy. We know what the children have enjoyed and when the library teacher goes to purchase new books we can advise her with confidence. We all keep a record of the titles and what the children thought of them. It has definitely increased our knowledge of what’s available now. Also we’re more flexible in trying out a wider range of books. Before, we categorised books according to the recommended ages, but Pick A Winner has given us the opportunity to broaden our ideas.

Having a specific set of books for a certain period also gives us the opportunity to get to know the books and their authors really well. I borrowed Tessa Dahl’s The Same But Different. We also looked at some of Roald Dahl’s books and thought about the father’s and daughter’s writings. It also happened that we were doing a topic on families and it fitted in with that. Another aspect of this point is that children get to remember their favourite parts or episodes really well; it’s often the scary or funny parts, and they ask me to read those again. This made me realise how so often before we gave messages to children that said ‘read it, done it, put it away, get the next one’. But children have always wanted to read books againfor themselves. Perhaps we have pushed them on too often and perhaps there is a point when you must stop and read it again – play it again – it’s just like singing favourite songs. You can enjoy it even though you know what it’s going to say!

One last point: both teachers and children are now reviewing books for a real reason. When we go to Pick A Winner sessions we know that we will have to talk about the books we chose and the children’s responses. We’re asking them not only to think about whether they enjoyed a particular story but why they would want to recommend it to other children. This is building up a skill in talking about books which is helping when it comes to written reviews for the Pick A Winner booklet.

Maureen Berry

Language Co-ordinator, Grange Park Primary School

The Advisory Teacher’s Tale

Pick A Winner took on another dimension after the introduction of the National Curriculum – though, by the time this article is published, the following quote may merely be lines taken from an educational revival of the Good Old Days: ‘Reading should include picture books, nursery rhymes, folk tales, myths, legends and other literature… Boys and girls should experience a wide range of literature. Pupils should encounter an environment where they are surrounded by books and other reading material presented in an attractive and exciting way.’ [English in the National Curriculum, Nat. Curric. Council, 1989]

In order to help teachers choose a wide range of books, Pick A Winner gave particular attention to the picture books for older children which required thoughtful, sophisticated responses.

As an Advisory Teacher I’ve gained a great deal from listening to the teachers’ responses and reading the comments made by the children for the Pick A Winner booklets. Also, there’s no doubt that we have all become more confident in promoting children’s literature as a result of the sessions. Equality of access is a central feature of Enfield’s learning policy, but there can be no equality of access to children’s literature if the teachers or librarians do not provide it for the children. We must not devalue the popular literature, both fiction and non-fiction, that children enjoy buying from their local newsagents and supermarkets but what we must ensure is the widest choice possible. (I often wonder what those people who advocate a return to narrow reading schemes are buying for their own children and grandchildren.) The London Borough of Enfield has no children’s bookshop and the book manager at W H Smith admits that she has to give pride of place to publications featuring a red, spotted insect which, however popular, can only provide a narrow selection. Other books from specialist children’s publishers are displayed so as to be virtually inaccessible to young customers. Pick A Winner gives many children access to fiction that wouldn’t otherwise come their way.

The reviews and spontaneous work produced by Enfield pupils in response to these books underlines the importance of making quality material available in classrooms. Children deserve the best and Pick A Winner, although not a substitute for financial resourcing, makes it possible for many committed teachers to enable their pupils to enjoy and engage with quality literature. Long may it continue.

Sue Baylick

Advisory Teacher for English

Book details:

Dearest Grandmama, Catherine Brighton, Faber, 0 571 14068 8, £7.99

The Orphan Boy, Tololwa M Mollel, ill. Paul Morin, Oxford, 0 19 540783 0, £6.95

The Whales’ Song, Dyan Sheldon and Gary Blythe, Hutchinson, 0 09 174250 1, £6.99

The Spell Singer and other stories, edited by Beverley Mathias, Puffin, 0 14 034398 9, £2.99 pbk

Six Dinner Sid, Inga Moore, Simon and Schuster, 0 7500 0297 2, £8.99; 0 7500 0304 9, £3.99 pbk

The Same But Different, Tessa Dahl, ill. Arthur Robins, Hamish Hamilton, 0 241 12456 5, £7.99