French Blue Mystery

 

Gun Violence

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Gun violence around the world:


Gun violence in the USA has been described as a 'National Plague'. Young people are taking action to change this: 

Robb Elementary School Shooting:

Suing the Firearms Industry:

The pro-gun argument is the second amendment of the US Constitution - this law was passed in 1791.

#JYHS Reads

Reading Schools is an accreditation programme for schools that are committed to building a culture of reading for their learners and communities run by Scottish Book Trust.​

There are 3 award levels - Bronze, Silver and Gold - but we are aiming for Gold.

Want to help? 

We want the whole school talking about books, sharing books they love, books they didn't and book's they want to read.

We have team of pupils and teachers who encourage, support and suggest ways we can get more people in school and the local community reading.

Want to join us? Sign up here.


Read Woke

 

World Book Day 2021

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LGBTQ+ Classroom

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LGBTQ+ Support

You can speak to any member of staff in the school if you need someone to talk to about LGBTQ+ issues. If you aren't sure who to speak to Mrs. Pirie and Mrs. Wilson run the LGBTQ+ Group - Pride Rock.


If you are a young person looking for some support and would like to speak to a youth worker, you can use LGBT Youth Scotland’s live chat service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6pm to 8pm: www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/chat.   

   

Alternatively, if you need to speak to someone urgently during office hours, you can call LGBT Youth Scotland on 0131 555 3940.  

   

Other contacts which may be useful if you need help and support now:  

   

Childline – 0800 1111 – Open 24 hours, 365 days a year  

   

Breathing Space Scotland – 0800 83 85 87 – Open Monday-Thursday 6pm – 2am and Fridays 6pm until the following Monday at 6am  

   

The Mix – 0808 808 4994 – Open 7 days from 1pm -11pm  

   

Samaritans – 116 123 – Open 24hrs, 365 days per year  

   

You can search for LGBTI+ specific helplines here  

   

Not in Scotland? Here are some useful links which you might need.  

   

If you are in danger, please call 999 for the Police.  


LGBTQ+ Online Reads

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JYHS Library has a great selection of LGBTQ+ titles - keep an eye out for a rainbow flag on the spine as you browse the library shelves to help you spot them.

Some of JYHS pupils favourite LGBTQ+ Books:


Mrs. Wilson's Favourite LGBTQ+ Reads:

Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
Ash by Malinda Lo
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
Boy Queen by George Lester
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson


For More LGBTQ+ Books have a look at the Stonewall Booklist or the Scottish Book Trust LGBTQ+ Book lists


Webcomics


Heartstopper - LGBTQ+ teens in high school

The Flying Ship - LGBTQ+ fantasy quest

Phoebe and her Unicorn - one girl and her unicorn

Check, Please! - LGBTQ+ Baking and Ice Hockey 


Poetry

Summer Reading Challenge

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#JYHSreads Summer Reading Challenge
Read Outside
Read a book set in another country
Read a book about kindness
Read a book someone recommended
Read a book whose main character doesn’t look like you
Read a book where the main character isn’t human
Read a book by a Black author
Read a book with a LGBTQ+ main character
Read a non-fiction Read in your pyjamas

Read Around the World Challenge

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Over the last term we have travelled from Livingston to Paris to Madagascar to Chengdu Panda Reserve to Geghard Monastery, Armenia to The Gardens by the Bay, Singapore! That's 30,538 miles travelled by reading.

Fancy seeing where we visited:

Paris, France

Madagascar
Now you can visit the Mangrove ecosystems along the North coast as well as go sailing on a pirogue 40km into the Mozambique Channel to see the remote Barren Isles archipelago, the largest community-managed marine conservation area in the Indian Ocean.

Chengdu Panda Reserve

Geghard Monastery, Armenia


The Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

Illustration Slam Challenges

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Give yourself a 5 min timer to draw each challenge:

Brown Bear
Sentient Pear
Couch Potato
Alien Abominable Snowman
Evil Robot Cowboy
Blue Penguin God
Angelic Plant

Virtual Con - Replay

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Missed Virtual Con? Don't worry you can catch up with what we enjoyed here:

The Etherington Bros. sharing their advice. (see more on their blog) (It’s an hour long so why not grab your drink of choice and some snacks to enjoy while watching). 


Draw Me like one of your graphic novels - Graphic novel Author panel with Gene Luen Yang (DRAGON HOOPS), Ngozi Ukazu (CHECK, PLEASE! 2: STICKS AND SCONES), and Lisa Brown (THE PHANTOM TWIN) 

Take a Virtual Korean Vacation with Korean Authors - Graphic novel Authors Kim Hyun Sook (BANNED BOOK CLUB), Robin Ha (ALMOST AMERICAN GIRL), and Erin Yun (PIPPA PARK RAISES HER GAME) 

Marvel heroes of tomorrow - Marvel Editor Lauren Bisom moderates panel - Nic Stone, Preeti Chhibber, Skottie Young, Saladin Ahmed 

Steph's Cosplay Recommedations

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Individual videos : 

15 MUST KNOW COSPLAY TIPS IF YOU'RE A NEWBIE Video not in English, but there are English captions







Floppy bard muffin hat. I had to add it because they’re fab



Try guys try cosplay (Warning: I think there's a bit of swearing) and where they make their costumes (kinda) 

Channels : 
https://www.youtube.com/user/KellaxProductions Axceleration, armour cosplays, textile cosplay tutorials/walkthroughs, con vlogs, 

https://www.youtube.com/user/myJheart Micarah Tewers (not strictly cosplay/costume, but lots of sewing videos and other fun stuff), makes historically accurate costumes, costumes from thrifted clothes, is funny and has chickens 

https://www.youtube.com/user/GinnyisaPrincess Ginny Di, has good bodypaint/facepaint tutorials, has some dnd content, costume/accessories tutorials, geeky music parodies

Not a video but where I source some of my stuff : 
https://www.coscraft.co.uk/ UK website, sells really good wigs at good prices (lots of styles, but there are like 72 colours for each style), it’s a helpful site. They also sell some fabrics and sewing patterns, also some thermoplastics and other stuff. It’s a great store for UK cosplayers 

Note : I have done my best to have this selection accurately represent the diversity of the cosplay community. There is a shocking lack of representation of POCs and even men in cosplay media. But I have included suitable videos from a diverse group of cosplayers. (it is extremely hard to find content (incl. Tutorial type videos that fit into what I’m putting on this list) from POC creators and men

JYHS Virtual Con - Catch Up Here!

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Free Comic Books

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The Etherington Brothers - they have produced 300 tutorials on how to draw, 200 on writing and are still making more! Plus you can read the first chapters of their books for free.

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill can be read in it's entirety online

If you fancy combining comics with learning try Dekko Comics - you can read them online for free and browse by subject.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s horror story The Tale o Tod Lapraik (comic drawn by Gary Welsh).

If you enjoy non-fiction you can download a pdf of John Muir, Earth – Planet, Universe

The Book of Hopes - a free to read online this collection of words an picture by the UK's top illustrators and writers.

Free Comic Book Day e-comics from past years on Comixology (search for 'Free Comic Book Day') Or DC Comics have a made a bunch of comics free until June.

You can download a copy of the Beano for free. 

Webcomics are usually passion projects so the topics, quality and frequency vary hugely. Some are professional artists sharing their work with the world and using other avenues to make money from their art or writing a webcomic as a side project. It's worth trying a variety to find the ones you enjoy, plus as the ones I am suggesting have got pretty hefty back catalogues to read through.

There are lots of webcomics I really enjoy reading, these ones are all still on going:
Breaking Cat News is cats telling us the news.
Slack Wyrm - is about a very lazy dragon
JL8 - imagines the Justice League at age 8
Heartstopper - LGBTQ+ teens in high school
The Flying Ship - LGBTQ+ fantasy quest
Phoebe and her Unicorn - one girl and her unicorn
Dinosaur Comics - t-rex deals with life

If you are a library fan then you can also give Unshelved or Library Comic a go both of which I really enjoy, though I fear they may be funnier to those of us who work or volunteer in libraries.

If you are still looking for more Book Riot produced a list of 50 they'd recommend or try Hiveworks Comics or Tapas both publish a wide range of webcomics you can read for free.

I love a daily comic strips like you'd find in newspapers by professionals as well. If you fancy those you can find comics like 'Garfield' and 'Peanuts' can be found here on GoComics . They also have the wonderful 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'Get Fuzzy' both of which you can read the complete the collection. You can pay a subscription but you can also just read them for free on the site.

JYHS Library presents Virtual Comic Con

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Mark up your diaries - Thursday 25th

Since we can't have an in person Comic Con as planned we are taking it online and making a day of it.

Join us for chat, comic writer and illustrator talks, mini challenges, quiz and of course the cosplay.  

June's Secret Book Club Recommendation

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This month’s SBC recommended read is ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ by Jules Verne.

You can get the ebook for free here
You can get the audio book for free here

Content Warning: This book was written in the late 19th Century, as books reflect the time that they were written in and as a result you may find some of the attitudes or words used offensive.

Jules Verne was a French author and he published ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ in 1872 as part of a series called ‘Voyages Extraordinaires’. This series of adventure tales also included ’Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ which are also well worth a read (you can get them free on www.gutenberg.org as well). The stories were written to both entertain and educate, introducing their readers to places, animals, cultures and ideas from science. He is credited as being one of the first science fiction writers, though ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ is a straight up adventure story.

The story is that of a bet – can Phileas Fogg make it round the world in 80 days? It was originally published as a serial, as a result some readers actually believed it to be a real journey and real bets were placed on the outcome. It’s also been suggested that Verne’s description and accuracy of some of the railway and liner companies was so good that he was paid by them to have them feature. The book is an exciting adventure and a fascinating look at a time period very different to today.

The idea of an English man being lured into making a bet like this may seem silly but it was a common activity in gentlemen’s clubs in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tim FitzHigham recreated a series of bizarre bets from the time period for his Radio 4 Show The Gambler. You can hear the season 2 episodes here.

It’s not just men in the past that are willing to accept a silly wager, there are a few modern adventurers who have done an awful lot of work for the sake of a bet. Tim FitzHigham being one of them – he rowed across the English Channel in a bathtub (you can read about it in his book ‘All At Sea’. Comedian Tony Hawks made a habit out of it and has written a number of books about his adventures starting ‘Round Ireland with a Fridge’ when he made a bet that he could hitchhike round the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month. More recently Dave Gorman bet Danny Wallace that there were ‘loads’ of Dave Gorman’s around. Their adventures are charted in ‘Are You Dave Gorman?’

If reading about men doing stupid bets isn’t your idea of a good time then perhaps the real life adventures of 19th Century women might be more up your street. Mary Kingsley travelled around Africa , Isabella Bird travelled in the American Rocky Mountains or you can read about nurse Mary Seacole and her adventures helping soldiers in the Crimean War. Again if you do choose to read these remember that attitudes and acceptable vocabulary have changed a lot.

If you are inspired to travel yourself then you can do it virtually. Why not;

Educate Yourself, Change Society #BlackLivesMatter

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Read Authors of Colour
Freedom by Catherine Johnson
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Gangsta Rap by Benjamin Zephaniah
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
You're Not Proper by Tariq Mehmood
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence
Kick the Moon by Muhammed Kahn
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds 

... but I'm not racist.
Recommended Reads
The Life of Stephen Lawrence by Verna Allette Wilkins
Why I Am No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala
Inglorious empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor

TED Talks you might find interesting

George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper by Trevor Noah

White People, Enough: A Look at Power and Control by Jaelyn Coates


Let's get to the root of racial injustice in the USA by Megan Ming Francis

Not all superheros wear capes-how you have the power to change the world by Nova Reid

Take it Further

Disappear into Wonderland

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Mrs. Russell (our Depute Head) is a big fan of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, but she isn't the only one. Alice's adventures remains one of the most popular children's books of all time - it has never been out of print for more than 150 years! 

If you haven't read the book or seen one of the many movies, tv adaptations, plays (it was the Cbeebies Show recently) over the years you have probably still heard about it as part of pop culture. The story itself seems simple - Alice finds herself in a curious place called Wonderland one afternoon when she chases a rabbit down a hole. 

It's not just children who love the story. Lots of Adults find that as they age the book reveals more to them, including being used in neuroscience to reveal more about the brain. The V&A was due to hold an exhibition this year about it (it's been postponed due to the current situation but the BBC Secrets of the Museum has behind the scenes on the real Alice) and the British Library has an online collection of articles and artefacts you can browse through at home to learn more about this classic tale.

The original story was illustrated by John Tenniel but as it has been republished over the years, others have tried their hand at illustrating the work including Salvador Dali, Chris Riddell and Helen Oxenbury (the BBC Beauty of Books episode 3 talks about this in more detail).

Even if you have read Alice in Wonderland it's a book that a re-read can reveal more to the reader.
Or if you fancy a challenge why not try to Escape from Wonderland yourself in this escape room.

Get hooked on webcomics

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Webcomics are usually passion projects so the topics, quality and frequency vary hugely. Some are professional artists sharing their work with the world and using other avenues to make money from their art or writing a webcomic as a side project. It's worth trying a variety to find the ones you enjoy, plus as the ones I am suggesting have got pretty hefty back catalogues to read through.

There are lots of webcomics I really enjoy reading, these ones are all still on going:
Breaking Cat News is cats telling us the news.
Slack Wyrm - is about a very lazy dragon
JL8 - imagines the Justice League at age 8
Heartstopper - LGBTQ+ teens in high school
The Flying Ship - LGBTQ+ fantasy quest
Phoebe and her Unicorn - one girl and her unicorn
Dinosaur Comics - t-rex deals with life
Check, Please! - Baking and Ice Hockey

If you are a library fan then you can also give Unshelved or Library Comic a go both of which I really enjoy, though I fear they may be funnier to those of us who work or volunteer in libraries.

If you are still looking for more Book Riot produced a list of 50 they'd recommend or try Hiveworks Comics or Tapas both publish a wide range of webcomics you can read for free.

I love a daily comic strips like you'd find in newspapers by professionals as well. If you fancy those you can find comics like 'Garfield' and 'Peanuts' can be found here on GoComics . They also have the wonderful 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'Get Fuzzy' both of which you can read the complete the collection. You can pay a subscription but you can also just read them for free on the site.

If you fancy combining comics with learning try Dekko Comics - you can read them online for free and browse by subject.

You can download a copy of the Beano for free. Or Comixology has some free comics you can download. Or DC Comics have a made a bunch of comics free until June.
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