Winners of this year’s Short Story Competition!

In September we announced the return of our National Short Story Week competition. This year our entrants had to write a 500 word story which had to include three elements: time travel, friendship and a rescue.

We’ve had an exciting time reading all the entries and as with last year it was difficult to choose a winning story. After whittling the entries down to a shortlist of seven stories and much deliberation, our judging panel selected ‘The Toaster and the Time Machine’ by Ashley Horsfall, aged 10 from The Hawthorns School in Surrey as the winner.  Ashley’s story takes us from the present back to prehistoric times for a crazy adventure with a funny twist at the end.

The Hawthorns School will receive a visit from children’s author Tommy Donbavand in the New Year.

Our runners up are ‘The Day History Changed’ by Sebastian Bell, aged 10 from Belmont, Mill Hill Preparatory School and ‘The Mirror’ by Adam Chapman, aged nine from New Road Primary School who have won £100 and £50 respectively for their school to spend on LFC products.

Sebastian’s story ‘The Day History Changed’ based on a factual event uses descriptive and emotive language that drew us in to the story.

In ‘The Mirror’ Adam had us hooked from the first sentence taking us on an eerie adventure with brilliant use of dialogue.

Congratulations to Ashley, Sebastian and Adam – and a big thank you to all the schools who took part!

SPECIAL MENTIONS

In addition to the superb winning stories we would like to give the following entries a special mention:

Best written for age group

The Time Machine written by Abigail Spencer, aged 7 from The Schools at Somerhill is a well thought out and well written story. A piece of writing I’m sure she and her school are proud of.

Best use of illustrations

Miya Belle Amrouni, aged seven from St Nicholas’ Preparatory provided colour and imaginative illustrations in her story Amy and Violet’s magical Adventures. The consistency between her illustrations and the story, and attention to detail down to the pattern on Amy and Violet’s jumpers made Miya’s story an enjoyable read.

Thinking outside the box

In The Beach by Lydia Cameron, aged 7 from Hawthorns School the story is told from the point of view of Lydia who is visited by Mia and her mum who turn up in a time machine whilst Lydia is playing on the beach.

Captain Fluffy Flapjack was our favourite character – who happens to be a teddy bear pirate, thought up by Isla Picken , aged 11 from Balbardie Primary.

Many of the entries used humour or suspense; here are some of our favourites:

Best One-liners

 “June 793!” It rang a bell in David’s head. Oh how he wished he hadn’t been making paper aeroplanes in Mr Shute’s history lessons! From Devils from Hell by Matthew Taylor, aged nine, The Schools at Somerhill.

“Maybe with our time machine we could go to the past and delete your mischief” from The Secret of the Mechanists by Vedant Bahadur, Year 4, University College School.

Best cliff-hangers

‘How could I possibly find Jamie? Is the future now my present? And will I ever know my world again? The Time Machine by George Owen, University College School – Junior Branch

‘Peter peeled of the mask that had made him look human but underneath he revealed his true identity he was a… ‘ The Forest Adventure by Catherine Stafford, aged 10, The Hawthorns School

We’ll be publishing stories from the shortlist and special mentions here on our blog, so make sure you follow our posts!

 

My favourite short story

As we are preparing to receive all the wonderful short stories in November, our whole office has gone quite ‘short story crazy’!

We couldn’t agree more with Guardian journalist Rose Clark who wrote:

“[Short stories] are able to suck you into another world as quickly as they spit you back out. They can have a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters that you’ll love and ones you’ll hate. They can make you laugh or cry, scared or shocked. Sometimes they can be even more powerful than a normal book, as their concentrated form will make you really think about what is being said.”

Selina, our brilliant brand manager has named her favourite short story as Veronika Decides To Die by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.

In the story Veronika believes she has nothing to live for, although by most people’s standards it’s quite the opposite. After taking an overdose of sleeping pills she wakes up in the hospital where she is told as a result of her attempted suicide she has damaged her heart and she does not have long to live.

“I enjoyed reading how Veronika’s determination to die evolved in to a desire to live and being drawn in to her life whilst in the hospital and the thinking behind her decision to end her life”, Selina says.

“The story provokes thought about how we can react when a decision is made that is not of our choosing. The other characters also provide examples of how people with ordinary lives come to a point where they no-longer can cope, and how at the time society and the medical profession viewed and treated them.”

Do you have a favourite short story, and why does that particular story make you tick? Share your story on our Facebook page!

LFC is running a short story writing competition for primary pupils in celebration of the National Short Story Week. For more details and to find out how your school can take part, click here
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Libraries, Secrets and Creepy-Crawlies

In celebration of National Short Story Week last autumn, we teamed up with Walker Books to launch an exciting short story competition, for primary schools to win a visit from children’s author Vivian French to their school. The theme was ‘a library, a secret and creepy-crawlies’, and was open to all 7-11 year-olds.

Picking the winner from over 250 awe-inspiring stories by talented young authors across the country was a real challenge for our LFC team. The whole team loved reading the stories, and finally agreed the winner as ‘Adam and The Secret’ – a brilliantly written story by Nathan Edwards from Hawley Primary School.

 Vivian’s visit to Hawley Primary in February this year was a great success. Mrs Dobson, who signed up the school for the competition, said:

“I just wanted to say thank you for such a lovely day! The children as well as the teachers were all so inspired by Vivian. Thank you LFC and Walker Books for making the whole day possible!”

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