Penarth Book Festival: Winners of children's writing competition announced (From Penarth Times)

Penarth Book Festival: Winners of children's writing competition announced

4:50pm Friday 21st September 2012 in News

THE Penarth Book Festival kicks off to an early start this week as the winners of the children's writing competition are announced!

The competition attracted more than 150 entries and, with the help of Barry Book Group, entries were whittled down to 10 finalists in each age group.

The final judging was undertaken by Philip Gross (winner of the T S Elliot prize in 2009), authors Suzie Day, Cathy Farr and Laura Kemp and co-owner of Hampton's in Penarth, Andy Bradshaw.

One overall winner and four Highly Commended awards were selected from each of the five school Years 4-8, with Years 4, 5 and 6 writing a story about animals (real or imaginary) and Years 7 and 8 sending shivers down the spines of the judges with their tales under the theme 'Ghosts and Creepy Tales'.

The winning entries were:

* Year 4, Adventure in the Night by Nadia Brown;

* Year 5, The Chinese Pastical by Mia Hill;

* Year 6, The Flamingo and the Frog by Lily Sellick;

* Year 7, Forgotten by Maxine Pwele;

* Year 8, The Rusty Key by Tristan Goodway-Simms.

The winners and those selected for the Highly Commended awards will be invited to West House in Penarth for an awards ceremony in October.

There will also be a special prize for young Alfie Mayo who, aged only six years, was not eligible for the competition but presented a very entertaining tale titled How the Duckbilled Platypus got his Bill.

The Penarth Book Festival week runs October 29 until November 4, and in the coming weeks the Penarth Times will, each week, publish one of the winning entries.

This week's winning story is from Nadia Brown.

To keep up to date with festival news and to find out how to buy tickets go to www.penarthbookfestival.co.uk or call the Booking Hotline on 07787 848337.

The Adventure in the Night

By Nadia Brown Year 4, Cogan School

ONCE upon a time in a little town there lives a little girl. Her name is Tulula Rose. She lives with her Grandma in a little house next to a wood.

On one sunny day Tulula went out in the garden to play. Then all of a sudden Tulula saw something red move in the woods. So she set of into the woods to find out what it was. It was very dark and gloomy in the woods, the trees were very tall. Tulula was very scared infact she was petrified!

Before very long Tulula was so scared she began to run. Then she tripped and grazed her knee and Tulula started to cry. Far away a fox heard Tulula crying and decided to go see what was going on.

The fox saw Tulula and hid behind a tree. He knew what humans had done to his family so the fox didn't know what to do. But Tulula was hurt so he knew that he couldn't just sit there. So the fox had to think and after a while he tiptoes over to where Tulula was sitting.

Tulula was sitting on the ground rubbing her knee. The fox whispered. 'Hello there little girl'.

The Fox paused. 'What's the matter?' And Tulula replied 'I have hurt my knee'.

'Here get on my back I'll take you home'.

After a while they arrived back at Tulula's gran's house.

'Thank you'. Said Tulula. 'What can I do to repay you?'. I know how about a chicken?'

The fox shouted. 'Yes please'.

So Tulula skipped into the kitchen and grabbed a chicken from the fridge and skipped back out into the garden where the fox was waiting. Tulula gave the chicken to the fox and the fox sprinted into the woods. Tulula never saw the fox again.

THE END