Yesterday, I took part in the Red Cedar awards gala and had a great time! This is an event owned by the children (several hundred strong) who packed the room, many of whom had taken the ferry from Victoria that morning to get there. These grade 4-6 students served as masters of ceremony, they introduced the authors in attendance, they performed skits based on the nominated books and they came up to us to chat and get books signed. The level of confidence, the degree of capability and the abundance of humour shown by them has so much to do with the fact that these were children in school reading clubs who were among other children from other schools who also had a passion for reading. I was impressed with all of them.
Dan Bar-el 