Drum roll please: the results of our Kelpies School Library Competition!

At Floris Books, we love libraries and passionately believe in their importance within the community. Libraries are safe-havens but they are also places of adventure and magic and freedom.

To celebrate Scottish school libraries and their dedicated staff, we launched our inaugural Kelpies School Library Competition. Our aim? To fill the shelves of one lucky school with books that have characters, locations and themes Scottish children can identify with.

We were absolutely thrilled with the response to the competition and loved reading about why Scottish books are important to you. A big thank you to all of the schools who entered and shared their love of Scottish books with us.

A huge congratulations to the winning primary school, Aldourie Primary (Inverness), who will receive £500 worth of Kelpies books to stock their school library. We hope they are well read and enjoyed by all! Well done to runners-up, Flora Stevenson Primary (Edinburgh) and Ladyloan Primary (Arbroath), who also impressed us with their passion for Scottish books.

Pupils from Aldourie Primary reading Kelpies in their school library

To enter, all schools had to do was answer the following question:

Why do you think it’s important to have Scottish children’s books in your school?

We received lots of inspirational responses, so to celebrate we thought we would share a few of our favourite quotes from the schools themselves!
Scottish books “make us feel like our country is important and has grand, exciting and modern stories to tell the world! It makes us proud to be Scottish. Please keep printing your smashin’ books so we can fill our library with them!”
Winner: Mrs Janice MacBeath, Headteacher at Aldourie Primary

“Valuing Scottish writers, knowing there could be a future career for creative pupils, engaging with their language, meeting the authors whose books are in our library, all these reasons make Scottish children’s books important.”
Runner-up: Miss J Broadley, Literacy Co-ordinator at Flora Stevenson Primary

Pupils at Flora Stevenson enjoying Kelpies books!

“Reading a book about ‘the nearby town’ is exciting, imagining that the story is taking place at that moment just down the road with a character that oddly resembles your neighbour. Many children can lose themselves in Scottish books simply because they can relate to the locations and characters… More Scottish fiction will be incredibly valuable to our school to dissect our culture and get children excited about being Scottish.”
Runner-up: Miss Lucy Halder, Teacher at Ladyloan Primary

Hands up who loves Scottish books at Ladyloan Primary!

“A very close depute head teacher passed away and she loved Scottish books . . . We want to have a Scottish corner in the library in memory of Mrs Paterson. At Touch School we love a lot of Scottish books because they are inspiring and interesting and they make us want to read much more in the future.”
Miss Rebecca Marr, Teacher at Touch Primary

“If Scottish books were taken away there would be fewer books for libraries which are already struggling to stay open . . . Libraries are important because they are great assets to local communities.”
Maddie Christie and Sacha Wylie, Pupil Librarians at Kirkgunzeon Primary

“The Kelpie books bring to life a variety of situations and settings which allow the pupils to appreciate their diverse Scottish heritage . . . The pupils feel it is important to honour our Scottish identity and although they love Francesa Simon and David Walliams, they also enjoy the beauty of Scottish Folk Fairy tales.”
Ms Maxean Dunham, Headteacher at Banavie Primary

The pupils at Banavie Primary just can’t put down their Scottish books!

“At Crosshouse Primary oor little book bugs luve a guid Scottish book. At oor weekly book club the weans luve nothing more than tae have a good blether about their favourite Scottish books.”
Mrs Lynne McDougall, Teacher at Crosshouse Primary

Here’s what those little book bugs had to say!

Rachel & Alex: “Scottish books are important to help us wi Scots language.”

Faith: “If the book says a place we ken we know whit it looks like in oor heid.”

Meghan: “When I read the story and it mentions a Scottish landmark, it just makes me feel like I’m in the story. It’s mair interesting to read . . . These authors represent oor country and mebbe they will inspire us weans to write fabulous books one day.”

We certainly hope so. We’ll keep an eye out for your fabulous book, Meghan!

“Our books are so important to make sure that people don’t forget Scottish words and traditional stories.”
Chloe, P6 at Glenlyon Primary

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!

Do keep in touch with us at Floris Books on our Facebook page or @florisbooks to share stories about your library and what Scottish books mean to you.