PAWS Pageturners Hilarious Books Experience
May 9th – July 16th 2012, St. Peter’s School, Chippenham
What we did
Pageturners ran an 8 week project for parents and children from year 5 at St.
Peter’s School in Chippenham. This project was funded by the Wiltshire
Council PAWS scheme. Six children and six parents took part. We had two
dads and four mums (with another filling in one week). There were five girls
and one boy. Everyone felt that the group was a nice size – not too big. They
thought that another couple of sets of parents and children (at most) would be
fine, but no bigger or people wouldn’t feel so able to get involved.
At the first session the group heard extracts and blurbs from a range of funny
books. They scored these along with the book covers and the winning book
was Magicalamity by Kate Saunders. This book was then the focus of the
following 7 sessions. Each week, aspects of the book were drawn out and
brought to life using interactive methods. Some of the activities included:
 Creating characters similar to those in Magicalamity (ordinary and
magic at the same time).
 There was some short bursts of reading aloud (while the group
doodled) during the first couple of sessions to get people into the
book.
 Acting out a scene from the book, but changing it to incorporate the
characters they had invented.
 Creating ‘labels’ highlighting our initial thoughts about other people and
how we are often wrong – based on the differences between how
some of the characters initially seemed and what they really turned out
like in the story.
 Making a ‘magicalamity thought board’ which everyone added
comments and thoughts throughout the project – it became very
colourful!
 Recreating Snow White using ‘magicalamity inspired characters and
injecting humour. (Snow White was a recurring theme in the book).
First the group worked in their pairs to make a puppet character. The
following week they broke into two groups – adults in one and children
in another – to write their scripts. Then, at the start of the next week
each group performed them. Both were hilarious!
 Formed character themed teams and created logos and slogans, they
then did a book based quiz which included answering specific
questions about their particular character.
 Everyone completed ‘book personality profiles’ – these resulted in
personalised recommended further hilarious reading suggestions and
some fun discussions about books and films that people enjoyed.
 The project ended with a Magicalamity board game – this involved
evaluation questions, team challenges and book based fun forfeits.
Feedback from participants
Feedback was collected at different points throughout the project – to get
thoughts about the activities and the book. More detailed feedback was
collected at the very end.
1. At the end of session one the group were asked to jot down their thoughts
about “what are you looking forward to about this project? or “what have you
enjoyed already?” on the table cloth which we’d been doodling on.
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Looking forward to enjoying an hilarious book
Awesome group!
Reading a new book
It will be fun when we do drama
A new book to read and some exercise walking to school!
Working with my daughter
Sharing fun with the rest of the group
Good fun!
I love doodling!
Doodling and drama!
Having fun and being creative together to keep the interest going
I am looking forward to the drama!
2. Feedback from end of session 3 where we did some drama and looked at
what forms an initial impression of a character/person/us! They broke into two
groups and had to rewrite a scene from the book adding in two of their own
‘magicalamity’ inspired characters. Everyone wrote their thoughts on labels
and stuck them on the board.
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Great, entertaining and funny. I can’t wait til next week. Yay!
It was amazing! The best so far!
Entertaining and made us think
Enjoyable and interactive
Still no tea!! But otherwise enjoyable and inclusive.
Great way to get the imagination going, also gave a new dimension to
the story. Really good fun.
I love acting
Great fun!
Really fun. I really enjoyed it.
It was really funny. I love drama. I want to do it again!
4. Everyone created a pair a ‘personalised wings’ which said something about
them and on the back they wrote their thoughts about the book so far. We
hung the wings on the Magicalamity thought board.
 The story is getting funnier and funnier
 Sounds interesting (a parent who was ‘filling in’ that week!)
 Funny, different, interesting, fabulous
 I feel that the book has got better cuz I have been reading the book. I
think the book is ACE!
 Interesting, funny, wicked
 Fun with a slightly nervous edge to it!
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I am really enjoying the story now as it is becoming more adventurous
and mysterious
I like the character Dahlia because she sounds like she would have
sparkly items!
I like the range of characters. Easy, fun reading. Interesting plot. I like
Pindar esp when he first showed up!
I think the book is interesting.
The sun-dried tomatoes are important!
5. In session five I asked the group to complete this sentence –
Magicalamity is…
 Kind of funny and can be read by everyone
 Easy to read, infectious story that you want to keep on reading
 Entertaining and interesting
 Awesome and funny!
 Amazing and fantastic
 Interesting and cool
 Great fun for all readers
 Fun with a hint of danger!
 Great for both adults and children to read.
 Cool.
6. After the drama performances I asked everyone to jot down
a comment about writing and performing their ‘magicalamity’ versions of
Snow White on the tablecloths:
 Lots of fun – icebreaker
 Ace
 Good fun!
 Very enjoyable – would have been happy to do more!
 I really enjoyed writing the script. It became quite funny trying to think
of things!
 Amazing!
 Wasn’t looking forward to performing it but it was more fun than I
expected!
 10/10 for all of it. WOW!
 I thought it was really fun, all of it.
 I liked it. It was really funny.
 It was mind stimulating re thinking and making characters from an
established book
 It was funny and interesting but when we wrote it, it was boring.
7. Feedback from final session
How would you describe Pageturners to someone else who was going
to take part in a project?
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Very enjoyable, nice to spend time your child and meeting other
parents and seeing them in a different light! (parent)
Really fun. It’s got lots of drama and fun stuff. It’s AWESOME!!! (child)
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A very interesting way of getting together with other parents and kids to
explore a book together (parent).
AMAZING, fabulous and it’s like you got to know the characters as
friends. (Child)
Good chance to explore books with your child and get to know more
parents esp one’s that you wouldn’t normally speak to at school.
(parent)
Really fun and cool. Fun activities. (child)
Come open minded. Very enjoyable time, great to spend time with
other parents and children all reading a book we have chosen as a
group (parent)
Fun! Interactive! (parent?)
A multigenerational exploration of fantasy literature with participant
activites. (parent)
Quite interesting. You would laugh every week. (Child)
Very good (parent)
Cool (child)
Was there anything that surprised you about the project?
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It wasn’t what I was expecting but BETTER (child)
The amount of activities you can do relating to one book (parent)
I was not expecting so many different activities. Was expecting
more reading. (parent)
Levels of participation by everybody! (parent)
Nothing! (child)
The amount of fun activities we do (child)
How much I enjoyed reading a book and participating in a group of
parents and children (parent)
How well everyone participated in all the activities! No one was
really shy!! (parent)
Surprised about how much I enjoyed it even doing things I thought I
wouldn’t like (parent)
It was better than I thought it would be!
What was your favourite activity over the 8 sessions?
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Quiz – because I like quizzes! (parent)
Drama because it’s awesome and fun! (child)
Dressing up (child)
Puppet show (making the puppets with glitter and sparkles!)
(Parent)
Making a puppet – great fun (parent)
Writing and performing the play (Parent)
Drama – don’t know why (child)
Writing the adults play. We had a great chance to chat and we
really had a good laugh doing it. (parent)
Drama, acting because I enjoyed performing (child)
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Making up a story line with puppets. Great use of our
imagination (parent)
Drama – it’s fun (child)
Drama (child)
What was your least favourite activity?
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Play (child)
Can’t think of anything (parent)
Quiz because they are boring but it matters what the quiz is. (Child)
Nothing at all (child)
Quiz (parent)
Finding out what character was on our back. We did not know each
other well. (parent) [This was an icebreaker in week 2]
Thinking about what I think about things especially my own feelings.
(parent)
The quiz because I just did not enjoy them because I didn’t know what
to put. (Child)
The quiz . It wasn’t very hard or fun. (Child)
Nothing (parent)
Not a long enough session, a little bit longer would have been great
(parent)
Nothing at all (child).
What would you change about the project?
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Nothing at all (child)
Do not know! (Child)
Extra drama sessions (parent)
The length of time (longer) (child)
Changed length 6.30 – 8.30 (child)
Change 1.5 hours instead of 1. (parent)
Length of time, 6 – 7.30 would be good! (parent)
If I could change it I would make it funnier (the book) (child)
Could do with being slightly longer (time) (parent)
Make the class a bit longer! (parent)
Would have changed start time to 6.30 (parent)
Longer because it’s really fun and it’s a short time. (child)
What are your thoughts about the book?
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A nice original story with interesting ideas and well suited to a young
age group (parent)
Twists and turns within the story, kept you interested and wanting to
read more (parent)
Ok! Could have been funnier (parent)
Kind of funny. Could be funnier (child)
I enjoyed the book and thought it was entertaining and humorous
(parent)
It’s funny, mad and crazy but it was AWESOME (child)
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Cool! (Child)
I really enjoyed it. The age group for it was great. Updated speech and
text for kids (parent)
Ok not the best I’ve read (child)
Good so far (child)
They could have made more of the ending in the book (parent)
Would you take part in this project again?
Yes x 12!