As a school with a deep commitment to living the motto, “Yew Chung will align with culture and arts,” the YCIS Shanghai Book Week is not just about reading books – it’s a celebration of literature.

Students at the schools’ Hongqiao Campus celebrated books and literature in a very fun and creative way every day throughout this school week. Students began the week with a “Snuggle Up and Read Day”, wearing pyjamas to school and bringing along their favourite teddy bears to join in the fun. This was followed by “Character Day,” with students dressing in costumes to reflect a character from their favourite book. Midweek, parents were invited to read to students in classrooms – in multiple languages! And to cap off the week, two well-known authors, Neil Griffiths and Sarah Brennan, were invited to speak to students and read their stories. Neil Griffiths also led a parent workshop, where he talked to parents about letting students read at their level, and giving them a range of things to read – including classics, comics, and magazines.

Across the week, students enjoyed visiting a display installed in the Hongqiao lobby featuring the entries into the Extreme Reading Contest – a “reading challenge” for students to submit photos of themselves reading in unusual places: leaning against the Eiffel Tower, sitting in the dentist’s chair, or even underwater! The winners of this year’s contest were Leo, Year 1, who was pictured reading a book at a dinosaur park with a dinosaur peeking over his shoulder; Ethan, Year 2, who managed to read a book while sitting on a tractor and simultaneously feeding a cow; and Year 3 student Adi, who was reading while floating in the Dead Sea.

Reading is a fundamental part of education, and events like Book Week at YCIS are excellent ways to demonstrate how reading remains necessary to prepare students for the future. According to Heather Lockett, the Hongqiao Campus Teacher-Librarian, “Book Week helps students develop a greater love for reading, by participating in a variety of different, fun and engaging activities, and by seeing their role models – parents and teachers – demonstrating enthusiasm for reading. The different languages read by parents, and featuring books from around the world ties into our focus of providing our students with a global education, as well.”