On Wednesday 6th December a group of STAGS students from Years 7 and 8 joined pupils from five other local schools at St Columba’s College to help judge the inaugural St Albans School Book Award. The pupils attending had previously read the three shortlisted books, namely: ’A Seven Letter Word’ by Kim Slater, ‘River of Ink: Genesis’ by Helen Dennis and ‘A Boy at the Top of the Mountain’ by John Boyne. The students were first split into six teams, with each team being a mix of students from each school, to discuss the merits of the shortlisted books. There then followed a highly competitive quiz where they worked together to answer questions relating to the books, with prizes awarded for the winners of each round. The participants thoroughly enjoyed these group activities, and all agreed it was a great way of getting to know pupils from local schools whilst also sharing some literary knowledge. After lunch, the students were treated to an inspirational talk by one of the short listed authors, Helen Dennis. She had many enjoyable stories to tell the pupils and her presentation was full of fun facts and humour. Following the talk came the moment that everyone was anticipating - the announcement of the winning book! To select the winner, the students took part in a secret ballot, votes were then counted and with much excitement, it was announced that A Seven Letter Word by Kim Slater had been chosen as the first recipient of the St Albans Schools Book Award. This was a particularly successful outcome as STAGS has chosen this to be the next ‘STAGS Reads’ text. Many thanks to Ms Darbyshire for supporting the STAGS students and helping them participate in what was a very exciting new annual book event. Well done to every student who took part and for choosing such a great book as the very worthy winner of this brand new Book Award.