Digger at Book Character Day

April 03, 2023: Digger was invited to open Book Character Day at St David’s Marist College, Inanda, Sandton. The Grade Ones, Twos and Threes were all dressed up in a wonderful array of book character costumes, seated in the beautiful modern chapel after early Mass. Mrs Buchner, the librarian, met me outside. She was dressed as Little Miss Happy, a very cheerful yellow ray of early-morning sunshine.

I was particularly pleased to be invited to a boys’ school as I was interested to see what boys would think of Digger’s story. I wasn’t disappointed either: the boys were absolutely fascinated by the background story starting with the need for the Suez canal and asked really thoughtful questions about cargo transport, shipping lanes and how the canal came to be. When it was time to read the book, they followed the enlarged illustrations on-screen with keen interest and joined in digging, tugging and dredging as required.

Book character Day winner: Paddington Bear!

During question time, there was a forest of waving hands. I moved up and down the centre aisle and picked as many different boys as was possible in the time. What they most wanted to know was: is the story real, did it really happen, where can we look it up? I had put the Google link on the complimentary bookmarks and I’m sure teachers and parents were besieged with pleas to find other facts and images of the events. Technical queries about ships, sailing and stranding would lead to very informative science projects too!

Thank you, St David’s and Debbie Buchner. It was super cool to be with you.

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