Taranaki Diocesan School for Girls celebrates book week with dress-up and activities

Taranaki DiocesanSchool for Girls students and staff transformed into characters for the school's dress-up day. Photo / Alyssa Smith

Book week was celebrated at Taranaki Diocesan School for Girls with a variety of activities taking place.

On Wednesday, students and staff dressed up as characters such as the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, princesses and dragons for the school’s book week. School library manager Julie Johnson says the dress-up day wasn’t the only way the school celebrated.

“On Monday we made origami bookmarks, Tuesday we did blackout poetry to create a poem. This is where students take a page from a book and scribble out words they don’t want. Wednesday was our quiz and dress-up day and on Thursday we had a comic strip activity.”

She says the aim of the week is to get students excited about literature and the benefits reading can have.

“When we read we escape the world for a little while. Escapism is good for our wellbeing and it’s something we should embrace. When we read we’re in our own safe little bubble.”

She says the student librarians did an amazing job organising the week for the students.

“They’ve all worked together to make this book week a success. Our head librarian Isabel really stepped up. She organised the craft activities and also ran the quiz on the same day as our dress-up.”

Isabel Hooker, 17, says the school library team have organised a book week for a number of years.

“Black-out poetry and the quiz are activities that happen each year. They’ve been so popular in the past so we decided to stick with tradition and run these activities.”

Isabel dressed up as Hamlet for the day. She was happy with the number of students who took part in not only the dress-up day but all of the activities during the week.

“It’s so nice to see everyone dressed up and getting involved. We have an amazing library group here so I think that’s part of the reason our book week was so successful.”

Celebrating literature is important, she says.

“There have been so many amazing books written. It’s good to shine a spotlight on these books and also give the students a chance to have some fun.”

Image 1 of 9: Isabel Hooker (17) was Hamlet for the day. Photo / Alyssa Smith