Students Write

Students from third year classes in Loreto Abbey in Dalkey, County Dublin, wrote to TESS about their experience of fiction in their leisure and school reading time. Their teacher is Ms. Aisling Greene.

Andrea Doyle writes
I have always been an avid reader, both in and out of school. Over the last three years, we have read The Twelfth Day of July by Joan Lingard, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Because I enjoyed The Twelfth Day of July, I also read the other books in this series but was disappointed to find them predictable and not as good as the first book.

The Outsiders gives an account of growing up in 50s Oklahoma without parents and gave a great insight into life and rivalries in city gangs. My favourite of all the school books is Harper Lee's. Not only did it give a message on racism but it highlighted many other important aspects such as the school and justice systems. It also gave a picture of life in America after the Wall Street crash.

At home, I prefer to read non-fiction, both biographical and autobiographical. A favourite of mine is The Full Circle by Michael Palin. He gives a day to day diary of his travels around the Pacific rim. This book inspired me to consider travelling to some of the countries he visited on his route and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in travelling.

Sarah Meehan writes
The novel I am studying in school at the moment is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is a striking yet heart-warming portrayal of life in the 1930s in America, seen through the eyes of a young girl called Scout Finch. In particular, the story deals with the case of a black man, whom Scout's father defends.

Scout Finch is eight years old and lives with her brother Jem, and her father Atticus. Atticus is a lawyer and takes it upon himself to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white girl. This story highlights the extreme racism that occurred in the past and a man's struggle to defend what is right.

I really love this novel. As I have read it in my own reading time, I was delighted to find we would be reading it in class. I think what is special about this novel is that it is told through the eyes of a child, which gives the book an innocence that isn't present in a lot of books. It also portrays the racism that African Americans had to endure during that time in America, and the story touches the heart in all the right places!

I would definitely recommend this book. I think it is an excellent book, suitable for reading in class, and in personal reading time. I think it breaks the stereotype that English class and its novels are boring!

Jean Kelly writes
For as long as I can remember, I have always known the joy of losing myself in a book. My parents have always encouraged me to read and every Christmas I remember receiving many books in my stocking.

Over the past three years we have chosen to read three novels as part of our Junior Certificate Course. These were The Twelfth Day of July by Joan Lingard, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I felt Joan Lingard's books were possibly written for a younger age group and, therefore, I did not find them as interesting as my other novels.

The Outsiders was an excellent choice for our second year novel as it dealt with many themes and I feel it will be a great asset to me in June. Another good aspect of this novel was that a young girl of about our age wrote it, so we see life from her point of view.

Our most enjoyable novel so far is the one we are reading now, To Kill A Mockingbird. I have read this at home many times for my own pleasure and I think it is an excellent choice for Junior Certificate students as it requires a lot of thought, gives wonderful characters and is great for discussion in class.

At home I do not have one particular type of book that I enjoy as I am quite open minded when it comes to reading new things. I really enjoyed the Harry Potter books as I felt they were for a much wider audience than they have sometimes been portrayed. Magical outlooks which tell unusual tales are great to really lose yourself in. One of my favourite of this kind is The Wind Singer by William Nicholson which I read at Christmas in second year. I feel it has great relevance to the modern world and its social outcast system can be seen as a metaphor for our lives. I also love some classics like Jane Eyre and Pride & Predudice.

In first year, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr and The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier were among my favourite books.

I also enjoy autobiographies or biographies which help us to understand what it was like to live through great historical events, especially wartime stories. I find non-fiction and history books very interesting and enjoyable. I thought the series "Horrible Histories" was very funny. A few years ago, I loved Carrie's War by Nina Bawden. Lately I have enjoyed reading The Past Is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg and I have started a novel set in the American Civil War called Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Meabh O'Hare writes
The books I am reading in school are Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Green, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I enjoyed The Outsiders and I thought it was really interesting, but I thought that The Summer of My German Soldier was less so.

At home I read loads of different types of books. I loved all the Harry Potter books and I can't wait for the fifth book to be released. My favourite authors are probably Eoin Colfer, Melvin Burgess, J.K. Rowling and Meg Cabot but I read anything that my friends give to me, and I also read my sister's books. I read the Lemony Snicket stories to my younger sister and we both really liked them.
I saw the second Harry Potter film recently and I thought it was excellent but I still haven't seen The Lord of the Rings film nor read any of the books yet. I read The Hobbit last year. The Harry Potter films are brilliant, but in my opinion the books are even better.

Aisling O'Rourke writes
I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. I used to read Noel Streatfield, Enid Blyton, Cora Harrison, Elinor M. Brent Dyer, Marita Conlon McKenna and classics from Treasure Island to Jane Eyre. I would re-read a book over and over again if I enjoyed it.

When I started secondary school I hoped it would be as I imagined St. Clare's and Mallory Towers, without the midnight feasts! My school Loreto Abbey, Dalkey is probably as close as you can get to these schools I had read so much about. It overlooks Dublin Bay and on nice days you can see Howth across the water.

Since I began the Junior Certificate course I have read three novels in class. The Twelfth Day of July by Joan Lingard, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, and currently in third year, we are working on To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. These gave me a fresh set of authors to admire. As soon as I had finished The Twelfth Day of July I took out all the other books by Joan Lingard from both the local and school library. Some of these were to do with World War 2, which I was interested in but didn't know much about. Since then I have read countless books on World War 2, some fiction, some non-fiction and I have really enjoyed them all.

The Outsiders I considered to be another eye-opener. It really brought to life the hardships people of my age and younger can go through. I feel the books we have studied in school were really well chosen and I am very grateful to my English teachers for opening up this whole new area for me.

In studying To Kill A Mocking Bird, I love listening to other people's ideas, thinking them through and either agreeing or disagreeing. I feel it has also added to the pleasure of reading other books as I think of what other people might think of particular characters.

At the moment I am also reading Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers. This in a way stemmed from first year and Joan Lingard. I make connections like these all the time with new books and I often find that it comes back to "school" books.

All in all, I am really lucky to have discovered books - they will be with me for ever, they have integrated my hobby with my school and they have really brought it home to me that what we are learning in school and what we are given there is genuinely a "gift for life!" And if I'm ever stuck for something "new" to read or even sick of the new I can go back to the "old" which are upstairs in a box - waiting.

Our thanks to the English teachers of Maynooth Post Primary and to Ms. Aisling Greene and the third year girls from Loreto Abbey, Dalkey, for writing for TESS.

If you or your students, boys and girls, would like to tell others about authors and titles you've enjoyed, we would be delighted to publish them in TESS.