Summer Reading Club gets hotter

Alice, 9, embraces the SRC theme with her pencil drawing.

“Fire fell, smoke clouds billowed, animals bounded to and fro. The silent whisper of destruction cascaded across the valley …” Elaina, 13, of Banana Shire, is just one of many young people hoping to claim fame in the Summer Reading Club (SRC) online Short Story Free Write competition before it closes on 31 January.

Elaina is one of many young people who has shared her creative side with the country on the SRC Club website since the Heroes and Villains program began in December. The online activities run concurrently with SRC programs and activities being delivered by participating libraries. Others have submitted Book Raves, story endings in the What Happens Next competition, their thoughts by Having A Say and a wide range of artistic endeavours to the Gallery.

You could spend hours on the Club website frolicking in the wizardry of language that young minds craft so well. Here are a few more highlights:

Six-year-old Vienna, of Mackay, spills on her favourite superhero: “Superwoman is my favourite. I have a doll of Superwoman. She has a red cape you can take the red cape off and she can do a cartwheel and the splitz.  Catwoman is a bad cat.  Just like ours.”

Kyara, 13, of Logan West, braves the big topic of death: “It wasn’t until I grew a couple years older that I realised death had done her a favour. It had taken mercy on my Grandma. It lifted and released her from the pains of sickness, the worries of life, the darkness of the world. She was finally free, free from everything and in a place now where she could be at eternal peace. It had done something kind in a way, which was something I hadn’t seen before. I smiled, grateful for death’s actions.”

Whether he knows it or not, 10-year-old Isaac, of Kilkivan, grasps onomatopoeia well: “Boom, goes the shotgun. Joseph ducks his head just to miss the bullet whizzing past his helmet. He is squished awkwardly onto the tray of an open ended army truck driving through the most war prone zone in the country. Joseph only joined the army for the weekly visits to the community and the occasional canteen help out, but somehow he got stuck here.”

Elaina, 13, gets into the Summer Reading Club spirit.

Few can resist the tales of our youngest contributors – check out this from Cooper, 4, of Gin Gin: “I fly in the sky and Dad’s in a web! I get the web off Dad and we fly away.”

There’s a lot more to read and discover, so if these have caught your attention, why not check out more of this year’s SRC Club Members postings.

With only 12 days left in this summer’s SRC why not encourage your young patrons to put their own hat the ring by submitting their writing, book raves and pictures to the online program. All online competitions are open through to 31 January … you never know who’s next to be World Wide Web famous!