In this year's reading competition organised by the Berlin UNESCO project schools, Carolina Barrera from class 7b was delighted to take 5th place. Emilia Garavy from class 6a was one place ahead of her and came fourth overall. She even came first in her age group (Year 6)!
The theme of this year's competition was friendship and love. Carolina impressed with the text "Courage is ..." by Jennifer Wiener. (The jury expressly praised her choice of text.) And Emilia kept the audience enthralled with an extract from Joanne K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". Both also mastered the spontaneous reading aloud of an unpractised text, the second challenge in the competition, with the jury choosing the novel "Grüne Gurken" by author Lena Hach. The text humorously tells the story of a child who comes to Berlin from a village in Hesse and tries to find his feet in the big city, wondering about the "crazy" residents here.
All in all, the variety of texts read aloud made for great entertainment. Everyone listened attentively to each other as they eagerly read aloud for three hours. The special pleasure that comes from listening, when you are eagerly awaiting the next surprising twist, was evident on everyone's faces. Carolina and Emilia also had a lot of fun. When asked how important their successes were to them, both agreed on a common answer: "Of course we are very satisfied. But the fun alone would have been enough of a reward. Participation is everything!" With so much fair play and good humour, the accompanying teacher presented the two friends with a lovely "ice cream trophy" (see photo) at the end!