RCHK's annual "celebration of anything books" comes back stronger than ever

RCHK 2023’s annual Book Week event took place from Monday, February 27th to Friday, March 3rd, celebrating reading, writing and creating in all its forms. Under this year’s theme — ”Creators R Us” — the LIRC team organised various events for everyone to engage in and enjoy.

Among these, firstly, were events that ran all week. These were extremely popular: most notably the Golden Ticket Book Hunt, a school-wide scavenger hunt; BookFace and Creative Competitions, where students used art and writing to raise awareness for important issues.

Equally as popular, however, were the single-day events. On the first day of Book Week, the lunchtime book club discussed the Golden Dragon Book Award selection and held a contest where students read extracts and offered ideas and opinions in various forms. On the second day, the Battle of the Books team participated in a head-to-head public showdown in the library during lunch. On Thursday, students won points for our houses by participating in the Battle of the Books House Challenge, a popular fiction version of the thrilling contest. On the last day of Book Week, students and staff dressed up in a costume with a literary theme, displaying it on our break time catwalk for a chance to win a range of prizes.

Amidst all the events, the most popular event, by far, was the Golden Ticket Book Hunt. Students scouted all across the school, searching for golden tickets. Students who found Golden Tickets were awarded badges, stationery or books. 

Year 8 student Karis Wong emphasised that she enjoyed 2023’s Book Week because numerous events were held, and particularly when she won multiple golden tickets. She also found the book shred challenge very amusing. Wong added that the public Battle of the Books showdown was entertaining, but unfortunately, no one showed up. 

“The events were great because we had entertaining and fruitful events every day compared to last year,” one RCHK student said. “It was much more enjoyable. My favourite part of Book Week was the Catwalk when I saw the amazing costumes done by the RCHK community. The most memorable part of Book Week [was] the Kahoot quiz on Thursday in the library about books. It was nice to see everyone there.”

The catwalk featured teachers in teams, as small as one and as large as a dozen, with a few students deciding to participate on the day. Adjudicated by the LIRC Events Committee, the English department dressed up as the Fremen and sandworm from Dune and emerged victorious. Notably, the runner-up — coming in only two points behind — was a student group dressed as Garfield. As students were not explicitly invited to participate, this was a surprise. Other catwalk participants, such as the Math and PHE departments, dressed up as Wally and characters from Mr Men, respectively. 

“Everyone worked very hard on their costumes,” Ryan Ng, a Year 10 student, highlighted, “But even though it was a teacher catwalk, some students also went, and actually, some of the students did better than the teachers. For instance, the Garfield costumes were stunning and placed second place behind the English Department only by one point.” 

Aidan Lai, one of the Garfields, said: “It's absolutely a tragedy that our clearly superior and better coordinated Garfield costumes didn't take the proverbial cake. My boys and I will have to do a thorough review and come back bigger and better next year.”

Another Garfield, Milo O’Neill from Year 10, commented: “It was an incredible experience, but we’re all still waiting for our promised reward for our stunning performance.”

Melissa Cooper, the RCHK librarian, said: “Book week is a wonderful community event, and it was so good to be able to [do] cross-school activities without COVID restrictions, so it was very successful.”

Students interested in self-expression via visual arts and literature had the perfect opportunity to get involved in the LIRC Arts and Literary Competition by submitting a piece of art or literature expressing their experience and perspective on freedom.

In Primary, students had author visits from Ritu Hemnani, who wrote Gope and Meera, and Alex Stears, author of Mr Wiz and The Dragon.