This term there was a club called Red Cedar. It is basically a book club with 10 non fiction books and 10 fiction books for Grade 5’s to read. If you read at least 5 and report on 5 then you get to vote for which book was your favourite and go to BookFest.

Every 10 days our group would meet and you could report on a book with other people that have read it while eating Oreo cookies and sipping apple cider!

I read 9 books and my favourite that I voted for was Encyclopedia of Me. It is about a girl who has a diary sort of thing in the style of an encyclopedia. I’m not going to tell you too much about the book because it is too easy to spoil!

On Saturday May 3rd 2014, 16 kids (including me) woke up at 6:00 am to go on a 3 hour bus ride to Nanaimo for Book Fest. This was our schedule:

7:15 leave for Nanaimo
10:00 Snack time! We had gummy packs and juice boxes
10:15 meet Sarah Ellis
11:15 meet Kevin Sylvester
12:15 eat lunch
1:00 buy a book, face paint, bookmark making
1:30 meet Synthia Nugent
2:30 book and bookmark signing by authors and illustrators.
3:00 Drive to Duncan for dinner at Romeos Pizza
4:30 dinner at Romeos Pizza!
6:00 drive home
7:30 return to school for pick up

I learned a lot from all the authors but one thing that has helped me with my drawing is author and illustrator Kevin Sylvester because he said to just loosen up your hand and don’t expect it to be perfect. He taught me a lot.

So as you can see it was a pretty packed day but it was worth the long bus rides and long waits to meet these fantastic and funny authors and illustrators. This has been one of my favourite ‘out trips’ ever!

This is Synthia Nugent (yes, Synthia)

This is Kevin Sylvester

This is Sarah Ellis