Hi , I’m Jessica, one of the Upper III students at the Senior School, and I am also one of our Reading Champions, so if anyone has any questions or ideas about the library you can speak to me and that can be passed on to the librarian; it is very important to us that everyone can enjoy the library as a space of joy.

Something you might not know is that in UIII, we do the Fiction 40 Reading Challenge! This basically involves us reading as many fiction books as we can, including biographies and poetry. Every time we read two fiction books, we get two ROSAs and receive prizes after every ten books. To help us choose what to read, we are given a reading list of books with genres, titles and authors, although we can also read other books from home and the library.

I personally love the challenge, and, despite being a passionate reader anyway, it still encourages me to read every day, record my ideas in my reading journal, and, I’m sure, I’m a better reader for it. One of my favourite books I’ve read for this challenge is ‘Lady Mary’ by Lucy Worsley, (an Abbey alumna) which covers the life of Mary Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII, in a wonderful historical fiction, so magically written that you would not even believe it is based on reality! I have learnt a lot about the Tudor queen from reading this book, and especially how she was an outsider in the royal court during her youth – even to the extent of being punished by starvation! I will say that it is a thrilling read, and I would recommend it! This has probably inspired me to read other books of historical fiction and try some of Lucy Worsley’s other novels.

One of my classmates, Aadhya, said “It is quite awesome having the freedom to read any of the fiction books we want for PRIZES!!!” And I honestly couldn’t have put it better myself!

I hope this inspires you to read or borrow a book from the library this week!

Jess, Upper III