National Share a Story Month 2023 Competitions and Resources
National Share A Story Month is our annual month-long celebration of stories and aims to bring children and books together in new ways. Our theme for 2023 was Sail Away in a Story. We know the adventures that stories can take us on and we wanted to promote the joys in discovering stories set around the oceans, seas and rivers. Boats, mermaids, pirates and underwater creatures filled the imaginations of children across the UK.
We had two fantastic competitions for children to get involved with this year. One was a short story competition featuring story starters from Justin Somper, Anthony Burt and Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre. Children were encouraged to choose one story starter and take the story in their own direction.
We also had a design your own boat competition where children could design a boat from their imagination and share some of the added details in a drawing.
We were lucky to have guest judges to help choose the winners this year. Naomi Jones, Sophie Green and bSmall publishers helped to choose winners.
Please do have a look at our booklist and promote the joys of Sailing Away in a Story with young readers.
Our booklist is a brilliant resource of titles for all ages to help promote our theme of Sail Away in a Story.
We thank Louise Stothard from Northampton Children’s Book Group for her expertise and knowledge in putting this list together.
Groups and Schools are welcome to use our ideas in their local communities and schools. We are thankful to Krista Greenwood for her help in compiling a super set of ideas to be used with the theme, Sail Away in a Story.
