For the past 10 years students across the school have taken part in their annual book-making competition.
“They create it from nothing. So that includes their drafts, their editing, their publishing, they’re doing the illustrations, the printing, everything,” principal Lindy Burke said.
“The books are all completed and handed to me at the end of term two. I take them home during the holidays and read them all and then do some judging. We have the Principal’s Award, we have the Principal’s Illustrators Award, and then we do an Indigenous award as well.
“It does take a considerable amount of time to do all that because they put so much effort into the competition as well.”
For the winners, the book is something they get to see in the school forever.
“We create books with a company and that becomes the prizes. We keep a copy of the book in the school so that we’ve got it forever. They go into the library, so it’s awesome,” Ms Burke said.
The competition is a popular one with the students of Echuca East.
“It’s lovely to see the transition of the students’ growth throughout the years as well. So there are kids that might have struggled early on but now have developed that literacy appreciation, and they look into books and they look at the structure of the books,” Ms Burke said.
“I think in this day and age where time is precious, actually taking their stories from the beginning, a draft mode, to a full-on published story takes a huge amount of time. So that amount of pride that the kids have in their stories is just beautiful.”
Mac Campbell, 7, and Alexis Thompson, 6, are some of those students who enjoy the school’s annual tradition.
Mac’s work was in memory of his grandmother and something that he worked very hard on.
“My grandma recently died and I wanted to do something to commemorate her ... I like how everyone’s stories are really unique and stuff,” he said.
Alexis said she enjoyed a lot of different parts of making the book, and one was particularly her favourite.
“It’s about a dragon called Emerald who has eight eggs and then they hatch at the end. The writing bit was my favourite,” she said.
Ms Burke said the competition had been an important part of how they celebrated Book Week at the school.
“Not only are we just doing Book Week, but we’re immersing them in the love of literacy well and truly. So they also get to share their own stories with other kids in the school,” she said.
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