By Danielle Kutchel
There was no writer’s block to be seen at Lyndale Secondary College last month as students raced to complete a brand new book – complete with illustrations – in just 12 consecutive hours.
It was all part of the Write a Book in a Day competition, which is run by, and raises funds for, The Kids’ Cancer Project.
The Kids’ Cancer Project is a national charity that supports childhood cancer research.
The competition takes place between 1 June and 31 August every year.
This year, five teams from Lyndale of up to ten students each – 47 students in total – took part in the event, writing and illustrating their manuscripts in just 12 hours.
On the day teams were given a unique set of parameters to use in writing their story: two human characters, one non-human character, an issue, a setting and five random words.
The creative process begins at 8.00am and by 8.00pm teams had completed their illustrated books.
The books were then sent to children in hospitals across Australia.
On Thursday 22 August, the students were brought together to celebrate their work and given a copy of their masterpiece.
Kalli Ioannou-Booth, director of whole school literacy at Lyndale, said the annual competition has become something that students look forward to.
“Every year more teams sign up to have fun working together to create a book from scratch for a good cause,” she said.
