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!
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