To celebrate World Book Day this year, each class read The Invisible by Tom Percival. The book centres around very important themes, including poverty, gratitude, invisibility, community, empathy and hope.
The Invisible is the story of a young girl called Isabel and her family. They don’t have much, but they have what they need to get by. Until one day, there isn’t enough money to pay their rent and bills and they have to leave their home full of happy memories and move to the other side of the city. It is a moving, powerful story that shines a light on those who feel invisible in our world and shows us that we ALL belong.
In the story, Isabel listed several things that her family lacked. These are things that many of us sometimes take for granted, such as tunring on the heating and going for days out. We created our own Gratitude Jars to reflect upon all the things that we are grateful for in our lives. We filled our jars with waords about small, day-to-day things that made us feel safe and happy.
The writer, Tom Percival, describes how ‘the city looked exactly how Isabel felt – cold, sad and lonely.’ Inspired by this, we considered how we could show feelings through drawing different scenes. We each chose an emotion and created a calligram to describe it.
Next, we focussed on the importance of community and, in particular, what it might be like to walk in someone else’s shoes for the day – not just the people who we speak to every day, but also those who we might never have spoken to. What would they see? What would they do? How would they feel?
World Book Day is all about the pleasure of reading. During the afternoon, we enjoyed an extended reading session. We were allowed to find somewhere around the school to make ourselves comfortable and read.
