By Callum Ludwig
Gladysdale Primary School invited Melbourne children’s author Alexis Tapp for their Book Week celebrations on Wednesday 24 August.
Ms Tapp has published 10 books in her Jack-o-Whisp series, featuring characters like Jimba Jackobean and Melody Whisper.
Ms Tapp said she returned from a writing hiatus during Covid.
“The books I wrote were back in 2008, 2009 and the start of the 2010s but I decided to write some more again, and wrote five. This is my first time being invited to a Book Week event and it’s lovely. It should happen more often, get more authors in and learn about writing,” she said.
“I’ve always loved writing, even at work through my job. It’s always up there, I just have to sit down and write it all out. I don’t believe in making books just for learning, I write just for fun and I like to give children stories.”
Ms Tapp spoke to the students about all of the people involved in publishing a book, from the writer like herself to the editor to her illustrator Omar Aranda in Argentina to a storyboarder and finally to a publisher.
Ms Tapp said she thinks books open the world up to people, especially kids.
“There’s got to be a wide variety of books out there, it’s so important. There are some really excellent Australian writers out there. Kids need to be able to find where they belong, and what they like to read,” she said.
“One of my favourite parts of Book Week is that children get to dress up as their favourite characters. There’s so much creativity and you get ideas too because you can bet your book is thinking outside the box and then you tend to do it as well.”
Ms Tapp also spoke to the children about her upcoming book Melody Whisper and the Golden Clucket, prompting a range of questions about what a ‘clucket’ is from students. Is it like a chicken? Is it like an Ibis? Is it flightless?
Gladysdale Primary School Principal Tara Jenner said she thinks it is really important for students to understand the process of writing a story.
“Often children just think you buy things off the shelf and it’s already done, so to speak to the actual person who’s shared their imagination and has written the story and how the process actually happened is fantastic,” she said.
“Reading is so important, from the moment they’re born, children, in my opinion, should be exposed to reading and having people read to them. Reading is what will get you anywhere in life, anywhere in the world.”
Gladysdale Primary School students were dressed up as a multitude of characters, with everything from Snow White to Darth Vader, or the Mad Hatter to Spiderman.
Ms Jenner said Book Week is a fantastic celebration.
“In this day and age where we’ve got everything on the internet and everything on YouTube and so forth, for them to read a physical book, be the character of the book, and dress up and be that person is really important because lots of things are on screen and only in 2D when they could be outside,” she said.
“The most important thing that we can do is give children the ability to be able to read and skills to know how to go about reading words that may be unfamiliar.”
