Last week, we were delighted to welcome Dermot O'Leary to Westholme to talk about his new children's book 'Wings of Glory'. The event was organised in conjunction with award winning literary events company Book, Bean and Ice Cream.
Mr O'Leary arrived at Westholme around 9am and signed copies of his book, before meeting Interim Principal Mr Upton and having his photograph taken with students from Prep, alongside Mr Dixon and Hornby. He also signed our visitors book, to add his name to the collection of esteemed celebrity authors that we have had through our doors over the past year, such as Matt Lucas, Clare Balding, Jeff Kinney, and Niall Harbison.
'Wings of Glory' is an action-adventure tale of one tiny bird, Linus the swift, and his quest to help win a world war. After initially introducing himself on the Croston Theatre stage in front of Westholme Prep students and other guest students and staff from local schools, Dermot then read an extract from his book. He introduced the characters and the inspiration for them and the story, much to the delight of the onlooking crowd in the Theatre.
Next, students and staff were encouraged to draw a character from the story on a piece of paper, following instructions that were shown on screen. Dermot then went into the crowd of students to inspect their work and was thoroughly impressed by the level of artistic ability!
Finally, students were able to ask Mr O'Leary some questions in an engaging Q&A session. Each school were then able to get a group photograph on stage. We would like to thank Mr O'Leary for coming in for what proved to be a thoroughly entertaining morning, his publicist, and Elaine from Book, Bean and Ice Cream for organising the event and to all students and staff in attendance.
