Library News: Daunt Books Children’s Short Story Competition 2025 & Nativity stories!

This week we will be introducing the Daunt Books Children’s Short Story Competition in the Library. Indeed, we even had some winners from our school over the past few years. What an honour to have four published authors in our own school. This year, we would like to encourage any other keen writers from St Stephen’s to enter, as it is a wonderful opportunity to write a story for pleasure and potentially see it in print!

Winning stories will have a cover designed by illustrator Laura Carlin and will be introduced by Hiba Noor Khan, author of Safiyyah’s War and her eagerly anticipated The Line They Drew Through Us.

Winners will be announced by 28th March 2025

How do I submit? You should email your story as an attachment to l.pereira@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk by Wednesday 22nd January. Please put your child’s name, age and class as the email title and on the story attached. Eg: Sally- Y4 Rosen (Age 9). The competition is open to all children aged four to fifteen. The story must be all your child’s own work and must be between 300 and 1500 words.

Please make sure that the stories are typed, double-spaced and single sided. We will then forward all St Stephen’s entries to Daunt bookshop by the closing date. A copy of the children’s stories will be kept in a special folder in the Library for all to read.

Results will be announced in March 2025 and winning stories will be published in during summer term. A copy of all entries will be kept in the school Library as a keepsake for the children to read.

This week we are reading different versions of the Christmas story in preparation for Early Years and KS1 Christmas nativities which are very much on the horizon. This will be the children’s last week of borrowing books.Here are some of the stories to be read aloud in the Library this week….

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