Wellacre’s Virtual Book Club

Posted at 1:33 pm on 25th March, 2021

Nurturing a Love of Reading in Lockdown

Wellacre students were encouraged to keep up their love of reading during lockdown with a special invitation to join a Virtual Book Club. 

All students received a copy of Penny Joelson’s book “I Have No Secrets.” The narrator of the book is Jemma, a teenager with cerebral palsy, who is unable to communicate. A murder is confessed to Jemma and readers follow her as she attempts to bring the murderer's identity to light. 

Each week, students would read a section of the book and prepare their responses to set questions. They could then share their views online with the others. There were also creative tasks to complete, related to the book and the themes discussed. 

George, Year 9, wrote an epilogue to the book, which was recently shared on Wellacre’s social media account. The author herself, Penny Joelson, responded directly: "Wow! I really enjoyed reading this. What a lovely epilogue!"

Mrs Stirling, Teacher of English and Whole School Literacy Lead, said:

"It's really important that students are exposed to a variety of people, lifestyles and cultures in the stories they read and that the characters reflect people they encounter in real life.

“Reading this book as part of the virtual club, led to some great discussions on disability and the foster system, and it encouraged students to ask questions they hadn't previously considered." 

Student’s enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the virtual club and feedback about the book was extremely positive.  One student said:  "The Virtual Book Club was really enjoyable.  The chosen book was a unique take on a theme, which so many authors have done before. The creative tasks were really imaginative too and made you think in-depth about the book."