Lancing College Attends Southern Schools Book Award

The Southern Schools Book Award (SSBA) celebrates the joy of reading by bringing together young people from more than 30 schools across Sussex and Kent for an unforgettable literary experience. Each year, students discover a vibrant mix of stories, meet the authors who inspired them, and share in the excitement of celebrating brilliant new writing.

With its warm community spirit and a shortlist that always surprises, challenges, and delights, the SSBA encourages readers to explore beyond their comfort zones and find books that stay with them long after the last page. It’s not just an award, it’s a celebration of imagination, creativity, and the power of stories to bring us together.

College Librarians Mr Homer and Mrs Gladwin took a group of passionate readers from our Third Form, Fourth Form and Sixth Form to the event and it was a huge success. Students were able to meet their favourite authors, get books signed and even meet the legendary Chris Riddell. Our students enjoyed themselves so much that they are already planning their attendance at next year’s event!

This year’s shortlist was:

How to survive a horror movie by Scarlett Dunmore (the winner!)

Find me after by A. Connors (highly commended)

Splinters by Rachel Delahaye

The boy I love by William Hussey

Silver by Olivia Levez

Student review by Cosmo LP

On Friday 27 February, I attended, along with a group of enthusiastic readers, the Southern Schools Book Awards, at Hurstpierpoint College.

It was an experience that I greatly enjoyed, and it was incredibly interesting to hear about the journeys that the authors took to write each book.

As with last year, there was a great range of books on the shortlist, and I would recommend every single one of them. None of the five books was quite like another, and admittedly while I would not read some of them based on the cover and blurb, it turned out that I enjoyed all of them.

It was an amazing experience to be able to meet the authors of the books I had read, and to learn about how they write their books in a variety of different ways. For instance, Olivia Levez, the author of Silver, writes all of her first drafts on an AlphaSmart Neo2, because she can only see the past three lines, meaning she cannot go back and worry about it not being perfect.

Overall I had a wonderful time and I look forward to next years competition.