World-famous Harry Potter publisher, Barry Cunningham OBE, last week visited St John’s First School to announce the winners of the school’s Harry Potter-inspired short story competition.
Barry Cunningham, who discovered J K Rowling and now is publisher at Frome-based Chicken House Books, launched the competition at St John’s School in October, inspiring the children with his tales of reading a dog-eared manuscript about a boy wizard and being the only publisher willing to take a chance on it.
He discussed what he had loved about the first story (the friendship), how he helped J K Rowling to finalise the rules of Quidditch and why he feels readers around the world have taken Harry Potter to their hearts.
All the children were inspired to write their own magical stories and were excited to learn that Barry read all of the entries, which came from children in every year group. In December, Barry visited the school again to announce his choices of winner in each year group. Each winner received a copy of a Chicken House book as a prize. As there had been so many wonderful stories, Claire Marsland, head of St John’s also presented prizes to school winners from key stage 1 and key stage 2.
Winners were: Summer (Oak), Thomas (Poplar), Daisy (Beech), Eden-Star (Rowan), Aisha (Maple). KS1 – Tahiri (Fir), KS2 – Oliver (Willow).
The school said, “It was wonderful to welcome Barry Cunningham to St John’s School as part of the school’s celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and we are extremely grateful for his involvement and his inspiring stories.”
