Alice Leggatt (SLG Committee Member), Oaks Park High School
This blog acknowledges the generosity of Lucas Maxwell (Glenthorne School), whose own blog, alongside his work on running Dungeons and Dragons in secondary schools, were a huge inspiration and help as I planned our events
The theme for this year’s World Book Day was ‘Read Your Way’, which perfectly suited the message I have been endeavouring to impart to students since I joined my school a year and a half ago; many of our Year 7s arrive with an idea of what they think ‘real’ reading is, and crucially, what it isn’t, and so I have spent a lot of time in library lessons showing them that ALL types of reading – comics, manga, blogs, fan-fiction, song lyrics, old childhood favourites – count and are valid. I wanted to use the WBD theme to further drive this message home, and to celebrate and expand on the thriving culture of fandom that exists in our school, so I decided to attempt to run our own version of a ComicCon for the week surrounding WBD. Here are some of the things we did:
Author visit and book signing
Jennifer Killick for the whole of Year 7, two author talks and one writing workshop
We chose Jennifer Killick to visit us as we knew she wrote on themes our students already loved – namely horror and friendship! She was perfect as she specifically references her own fandom in her talk and develops a wonderful bond with students over shared passions (mine were obsessed with her manga tattoos!). We built hype by reading extracts of her work to every Year 7 in library lessons ahead of her visit, and by heavily promoting the book signing and chance to meet a real author as a special and unique event.
Manga Drawing Workshop
Manga artist Sonia Leong for 35 students who self-referred to the event
We had Sonia visit us virtually via Zoom and she was fantastic, giving a 30-minute talk on the history of the medium and her own route into it, followed by a one-hour drawing tutorial during which our students produced some incredible art. She also allowed time for questions and kindly provided feedback on the artwork some of our students had created in their free time. By inviting students to self-refer to the event we ensured they would be engaged and would benefit from the visit, but we’d love to host her in person at some point in the future as her appeal is universal.
Comic book sale
Hosted by Forbidden Planet, open to all year groups
I approached our local comic book shop, whom we have purchased library books from in the past and asked if they’d be interested in visiting us and running a book sale. I was thrilled when they said yes, even more so when they agreed to visit on the actual World Book Day! They brought a range of comics, graphic novels and manga at all price points, and very kindly donated comics to students who could not afford to make purchases. We ran the sale in the same way as a traditional school book fair, and it was very popular with students queuing outside the library to come in. This was our first ever book sale and we were a little uncomfortable about selling things to our students; to try to ensure that every student got to select a book if they wanted, regardless of money, we stationed a student librarian outside to collect a wish list of books – the school will purchase as much of this list as possible and ensure that the students that requested the books are the first borrowers.
Comic book talk
Hosted by Forbidden Planet, for 35 students who self-referred to the event
We hosted a casual Q&A in the library for 35 students with the Forbidden Planet staff. They patiently answered questions as varied as ‘What’s your personal favourite comic?’ to ‘What’s the most disgusting thing anyone has ever done in your shop?’! Students created their own comics as part of the session, and one even asked for the staff’s autographs which made us all tear up!
Comic writing competition
Open to all students
I made simple one-page comic templates for students to complete – they could write any type of comic on any theme they wanted but it had to fit on one page. This was scaffolded with speech bubbles and headings for students who needed additional support, and we also accepted comics made entirely independently. The work they produced was simply astounding and showed a huge range of interests and skills. Main prizes were kindly donated by Forbidden Planet, although we ended up giving every entry a small prize as we were so impressed by their efforts. Once the competition was over, we made a display of all the entries and stationed it outside the library for all to enjoy.
Warhammer taster session
Open to all year groups, students self-referred (after school event)
We signed up to Warhammer’s schools programme and received their free introductory kit, which provides enough resources for approximately fifteen students if you aren’t planning on running a full game; we were also lucky that the Father of one of our students is an award-winning Warhammer painter and donated additional materials for us (and has offered to run a workshop for us at a later date). Students were able to come to the library after school to see what Warhammer is all about and have a go at painting their own figure. It was a relaxed and fun session, with many students commenting on how therapeutic it was to sit and focus on painting for an hour.
Library Lessons – What are role playing games?
As part of library lessons we discussed games like Dungeons and Dragons, had a go at creating our own characters and read a Choose Your Own Adventure book (Shadow Chaser by Simon Tudhope) to give students an idea of how role playing can be fun and beneficial for their mood and creativity.
Optional Dressing up
Years 7 and 8, staff and all student librarians
This was our first year as a school in which we experimented with allowing Key Stage 3 to wear a costume to school. There was some apprehension on the part of SLT on whether students would take advantage of the freedom to be out of uniform, but in the event those who dressed up all made an incredible effort and hugely enjoyed the chance to express their literary interests via costume. We had a wonderful mix of classic characters alongside manga/comic characters, and staff really pushed the boat out too which led to some great discussions. There was a great buzz around school and I’m confident that we’ll be able to run the event again.
Book Bake-off
All year groups
Students were invited to express their love of books through cake! Again, we had no idea if it would work but we had about sixteen cakes submitted on themes ranging from The Neverending Story to Heartstopper and raised £100 for the library and charity in the process!
Read What You Love event
We printed ‘happy’ poems with a positive message, had our student librarians make origami envelopes for them, and added a small, good-luck charm. These were given to students who visited the library and told us what their favourite books/genres were and why (this information will feed into our governor’s report for the end of the year and inform purchasing decisions going forward). Needless to say, we were very popular!
I hope the above gives you a few ideas if you want to run your own Comic-Con event at school. Below are a couple of lessons I learned in case they may be helpful for you:
Don’t try and squeeze everything in to one day
We spread our events out over a couple of weeks (and in the case of Jennifer Killick’s visit, a month in advance due to scheduling conflicts!). Have an all singing, all dancing World Book Day is nice but if things are too busy, you’ll likely find that students miss out on things, and that you will certainly not be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour. In any case, more time spent celebrating reading is always a good thing!
Don’t reinvent the wheel
I have always been inspired and assisted by my community of fellow librarians when organising events. Before you create resources from scratch, ask around – the chances are someone in your community has the poster/template etc. that you need and is happy to share (please feel free to get in touch with me for any of the resources mentioned here!).
Don’t think you can’t achieve your own Comic-Con with a limited or non-existent budget/without SLT support
My school is a state school, and so although I do have a library budget, it is not extravagant by any means. Most of these events were in fact adapted from my time in another state school where I had a yearly budget of exactly £0, and so they are possible if you need to keep a tight hand on the purse strings; Warhammer’s school’s programme is free to join, author videos can be used in the place of in-person visits (the Hay Festival player is excellent and free), manga drawing tutorials abound on YouTube, and it is always worth approaching comic shops or book shops to see if they might like the opportunity to undertake some on-the-ground market research and add a school lunch into the bargain! It is nice to have additional money for extras like in-person visits and decent prizes, but not at all necessary and in my experience the students have a lovely time either way.
I am very fortunate to have a senior leadership team that trusts me to manage the library and our celebrations, and that provides support in pulling these events off, but even if you are not so lucky many of these ideas can be scaled back and run on a smaller scale in the library with the support of students instead – again, I’ve done most of these events both ways and the students are appreciative of both equally.
Wishing you the best of luck if you decide to try something similar in your school. Do please reach out to me on Twitter/X @ADayInTheLib if I can help at all.