To celebrate World Book Day on March 3, the pupils of Jones Memorial Primary School showed off their creativity and artistic talent by taking part in the ‘book in a box’ competition, where they decorated boxes inspired by their favourite stories.

Organised by the school’s literacy co-ordinator and P7 teacher, Helen Graham, the competition was very popular with all classes, with many pupils thinking outside of the box with their designs.

Some were inspired by novels, such as Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’, whilst others looked to fairy tales such as ‘Hanzel and Gretel’.

Comic books were also a popular source of inspiration, with Spider-Man featuring in one of the designs, as well as more modern children’s books, including a design inspired by ‘The World’s Worst Teachers’ by David Walliams.

The Impartial Reporter was invited out to Jones Memorial PS to judge the World Book Day competition, which proved very difficult due to the high standard of creativity.

Talking about the idea behind the ‘book in a box’ competition, Mrs. Graham said: “Every year we like to think of something different for the children to get involved in and previously we have done ‘Design a potato head character’ and ‘Book in a jar’.

“This year we thought ‘book in a box’ would be something different that everyone can get involved in.

“It’s just something for parents and children to get involved in together at home,” she said, adding: “We like to steer away from the World Book Day costume thing, because we don’t want to put pressure on people to get costumes – we like to focus on the stories in the books themselves.”

She explained that pupils from every class across the school had the opportunity to take part.