Jack Andraka Visits Reddish Vale High School

Jack Andraka with Theo Hudson, a student from Reddish Vale High School.

Year 6 pupils from Abingdon Primary celebrating British Science Week, joined pupils from Reddish Vale for a visit from very special guest, the inspirational Jack Andraka.

18 year-old Jack was touring to promote his book, Breakthrough, which tells the story behind his revolutionary discovery. Jack started investigating new, cheap tests for early detection of certain cancers when he was just 13, the same age as many of the pupils in the room.

Henry, a student from Abingdon Primary, said, “It was very inspiring to meet someone who has had so much success.” Elizabeth Teague, a pupil from Reddish Vale, added, “It was amazing to meet such a talented and inspiring person. It’s made me want to be like him.”

Jack demonstrated an experiment from his book, which had everyone enthralled. He answered questions from the audience about his work and his life at school. Manchester Children's Book Festival Director Kaye Tew said,

“The pupils were so attentive throughout Jack’s talk and I was amazed at the detailed questions the pupils asked Jack at the end. Some of the questions were very scientific, delving into the detail of some of the processes he had described. Other students asked ethical questions, about how Jack would ensure that large corporations didn’t make money out of his work when his intention is to create cheap and simple tests that will benefit everyone. Others took us into the realm of science fiction, with what-if scenarios about the Nano-Bots that Jack had described."

Jack told the audience about some of the problems he had growing up, “Being a bit of a geek and then realising I was gay didn’t exactly mean I got an easy ride in school.” He immersed himself his work and now is a bit of an urban legend in his school. Theo Hudson, a student from Reddish Vale, commented, “Jack is very inspiring and it is nice to see that he faced the same problems in school as we do."

Lisa Carter, an English teacher at Reddish Vale, said, "We chose to use the event as a reward for those pupils who’ve shown great achievement or effort in science. Jack Andraka was a brilliant role model for them, and he clearly fired their imagination and engaged them in his talk.

"The best aspect, in my opinion, was the amount of time Jack spent on their questions, and in talking to students afterwards. The pupils were fascinated by his experiences and I think they enjoyed the challenge of the content – and not being patronized. 

"The primary pupils probably understood less of the science, but were awed by the event and the quality of our pupils’ questions – making it an aspirational event for all the children. All the adults involved were also very positive and want to know when the next one is!"

Compton Valance conducting Experiment #7

Compton Valance took some time out of his Manchester Children's Book Festival duties and tried out Jack's Experiment #7 The Sucking Glass. Try it yourself and send us a picture to be published on the International Reading and Writing Relay.

Compton Visits Z-Arts

PuppetCraft: Presents MONKEY! at Z-Arts

When our very own cheeky monkey, Compton, heard that Manchester Children's Book Festival was teaming up with the fantastic Z-Arts to bring you 'PuppetCraft: Presents MONKEY!' he just couldn't wait to find out more. Check out Compton's Z-Arts adventure in the video below.

Written specially for PuppetCraft by the wonderful poet, Michael Rosen, 'PuppetCraft: Presents MONKEY!' is a puppet show for the whole family featuring the comic adventures of a fantastical superhero, inspired by the classic Chinese epic story. 

Stunning string puppets, antique shadow puppets and live music tell the story of the birth and comic escapades of MONKEY … the trickster who … hatched from an egg … can fly on a cloud … and can transform into anything…!

For more info visit:

www.z-arts.org/events/monkey

MCBF and the Mysterious Mouldy Sandwich

Compton Valance's Time Travelling Mouldy Sandwich.

Those with an eye on social media may well have been picking up strange murmurings about mouldy sandwiches and time travel on Twitter. You might also have heard rumours about the Manchester Children's Book Festival becoming an annual event. It is all true.

After the huge success of last year's Manchester Children's Book Festival, which started in 2010 with a four-day pilot and then ran again in 2012 and, by 2014 involved most of the city's major museums, galleries, libraries and theatres, was a fixture in the diaries of many of the regions schools and families, the team at Manchester Metropolitan University decided that, instead of waiting until 2016 for the next one, they'd make MCBF an annual event.

The main festival programme will run from 25th June to 5th July, with events and activities as broad ranging as the launch of a brand new Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare, two days of events celebrating multi-cultural Manchester for schools and a debate about LGBT and children's fiction. The two weekends of activities for families also include a two-day celebration of children's poetry and the hugely popular Saturday Family Fun Day at MMU, which will feature Usborne author Matt Brown, with his third book in the Compton Valance series.

This is where the surreal link to mouldy sandwiches and time-travel comes in. Matt Brown's character, Compton Valance, time travels as the result of taking a bite from a sandwich that has been left in his lunchbox for 13 weeks. Microbiology and Food Technology academics at MMU, in devising activities for the Family Fun Day, decided to test Matt's theory and, last week put two sandwiches into incubation in an experiment that will look at the development of microbes. Joanna Verran said, "We are incubating a cheese and pickled egg sandwich, as well as a non-potential time travelling ordinary cheese sandwich, for 13 weeks, under similar conditions to Compton – although we aren’t going to taste them at the end! The sandwiches are being kept in sandwich boxes in our microbiology lab, and we are watching and photographing them to see what happen. We are expecting quite a lot of mould to grow in that time!"

Festival Director Kaye Tew said, "Though this may all seem like a bit of fun, and it is, there is a serious purpose to what we're doing. When my fellow directors, Carol Ann and James Draper, from the Manchester Writing School at MMU and I put together the MCBF programme, we agreed that it should be as accessible as possible. We offer a great deal for family audiences but, by scheduling the festival during the school term and by offering innovative - sometimes quite disgusting - ways to get children to engage with stories and books, we hope to engender an interest in reading for pleasure."

The grand unveiling of the mouldy sandwich will happen at the Family Fun Day on Saturday 27th June at MMU, where families can come along to view the time-lapse film, make their own 'mouldy' sandwiches and get involved in all sorts of activities not normally associated with reading. Oh and you'll be able to buy books and meet authors there, too.