The English Department at Barry Comprehensive School are inviting a selection of our most able and talented key stage three pupils to attend a new after school book club!

The invitees will have the opportunity to review some of the page-turners being discussed as part of this year’s Hay Festival Schools Programme. The Hay Festival, set within the beautiful Welsh borders, has been going strong for 27 years; it brings together writers, poets, lyricists, scientists and environmentalists from all over the world to share stories, debate interesting ideas and celebrate literature.

Pupils involved will be given the fantastic opportunity to attend the festival on Friday, May 27 and listen to some of the authors discuss their books.

The authors and their texts (which the club will be reading) include: Matt Dickinson’s North Face (a novel about an epic rescue mission after a deadly earthquake hits the Himalayas, leaving a climber trapped high on Everest); Juno Dawson’s Mind Your Head (a frank, factual and funny book about taking care of your mental health, covering topics from anxiety and depression to addiction and self-harm); Patrick Ness’ The Rest of Us Just Live Here (a witty and touching novel about trying to cope with growing up alongside a dysfunctional family plus a society full of zombie deer, demigod mountain lions and mysterious pillars of blue light); and Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree (an intriguing Gothic murder mystery delving into the moral battles between truth and lies).

The English department are delighted to be able to host this book club and trip, and can’t wait for their pupils to feedback on these thrilling texts.