As I sat in the cosy library of Loreto Senior Primary School, I was transported. Memories of my own school days came rushing back as I tuned into the sounds around me, the announcements on the school intercom, the patter of footsteps, teachers’ voices, laughter, chatter – the distant rumble of learning. Schools are a magical place. They are universal. No matter what school you visit, no matter where in the world, it will always feel familiar, as though you never left. In fact, sitting in that library, I found it hard to believe that I had long since outgrown the tiny chair I was perched on, my knees knocking off the school table in front of me. On the opposite side of the table were three smiling fifth-class pupils, Smilte Binkyte, Paris Murphy and Roma Moorhouse. In a room packed with colour and books, none were more vibrant than the books in their hands which they had both written and illustrated as part of the Bookmarks programme. They spoke eagerly about them to The University Times.
Organised by the Trinity Access Programmes (TAP) each year, the bookmarks programme is an eight-week writing and illustrating workshop series for fifth and sixth-class pupils from TAP’s link schools. It is a collaboration between the Trinity College Library, TAP and Trinity’s School of English. Each year, approximately 70 pupils participate in the programme. The initiative was inspired by the Pollard Collection of children’s literature and aims to pry open this collection, allowing the students to use it as stimulus for their own creative thinking. They are given the unique opportunity to view the vintage book collection during a guided tour of Trinity.
Throughout the two month period, with the help of their teachers and peers, students plan, write, edit and illustrate their own book, based on a given theme. Each week they participate in workshops given by illustrator Angela McDonagh and by children’s writers Catherine Ann Cullen and Síne Quinn. The workshops are designed to cultivate the students creative abilities, encouraging the them to seek inspiration from the ordinary. “When we were at Trinity in the workshop with Angela, she gave us a sheet of paper and a cotton bud,” muses Moorhouse. “We got paint and had to dab it on the sheet. Then we had to find a picture in it, because she said that anything, a squiggly line or anything, could turn into a picture.” This years theme is “Travel and Discoveries” with Swift’s novel Gullivers Travels acting as a source of inspiration for Murphy’s book, The Giant Dream. “[My book] is about a girl,” explains Murphy, “and she goes to a different world but she has to kill all the giants so that she can get home.”
At the end of the eight weeks, the books are taken to be professionally bound. Following a short but exciting wait, the finished works have been unveiled today, March 28th, at the annual Bookmarks Awards Ceremony in Trinity’s Long Room by Laureate na nÓg PJ Lynch. During the launch ceremony, surrounded by their friends and families, the pupils are invited to read extracts from their books aloud and are presented with certificates. Following the ceremony their books spend two weeks on display in the heart of the library. Viewed by visitors from all around world, the exhibit never fails to garner international attention.
All the children had different books. All the girls had something different. And they worked really hard on them
For the families of Binkyte, Murphy and Moorhouse, the 2017 Bookmarks launch night will not be the first one they have attended, as all three students have siblings who took part in the programme in 2013. Their older sisters Milena Naujalyte, Jordan Fields-Murphy and Kayla Cooling, participated in the programme when they were in 6th class. Their sixth-class teacher and current Loreto Home School Liaison Officer, Jane Deering, notes to The University Times that “all the children had different books. All the girls had something different. And they worked really hard on them. I thought their whole work ethic was great”.
“There was a lovely buzz and a lovely atmosphere in my classroom at the time”, she says. Four years on, now in Transition Year, Fields-Murphy, Cooling and Naujalyte reflect on their experience when speaking to The University Times. Cooling noted that the programme was a “good experience” whilst Fields-Murphy commented on the competition between her and her sister, Paris. “She is just trying to make hers better than mine”, she laughs. Fields-Murphy based her own book The African Adventure largely on CS Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.
Despite natural sibling rivalry, the older sisters have primarily acted as role models and beacons of inspiration to the current Bookmarks participants. Sisters Milena Naujalyte and Smile Binkyte are prime examples. Milena Naujalyte’s 2013 book, Fade Away is told from the perspective of a dog. “It is kind of sad because there is a death at the end”, explains Naujalyte. “I wanted it to be an emotional book. It was different and I feel like children connect to animals more than they do to people.” Four years on, her book is acting as inspiration for her younger sister, Smilte Binkyte. “I remember I brought [my book] home and she was like, ‘I’d love to do something like that’”, says Naujalyte. “And then she got to do it. She’s really in to it. She’s more artistic than me.” Binkyte’s book centres around a unicorn and like her sister’s book, has sad motifs. “My book is about a girl, which is me, but her name is Melissa”, muses Binkyte. “I go into a different world and I have to save a unicorn but she doesn’t make it in time so the unicorn dies.”
We also wanted them to experience a positive project in Trinity so that maybe they’d consider Trinity as part of their future
Through the Bookmarks programme, TAP hopes to inspire young children to become the next generation of authors, illustrators and editors. It aims to show them that a love of reading, a love of writing and a love of drawing can translate into a successful career. Speaking to The University Times, the programme’s co-ordinator, Kathleen O’Toole-Brennan, outlined the inspiration for the initiative: “We came up with the name ‘Bookmarks’ because the children who take part are in fifth and sixth class. They are about to make a big transition. Some of them will be moving on to secondary school. So we wanted them to mark this period in their lives. We also wanted them to experience a positive project in Trinity so that maybe they’d consider Trinity as part of their future, or in the very least that they make sure they consider their post-secondary options and consider higher education as being an integral part of that.” The Bookmarks programme is certainly achieving its goal. From forensic science to personal training, art to veterinary medicine, each of the past and present Bookmarks participants hope to continue to third-level education, with no shortage of enthusiasm. “I want to be a primary school teacher, but I’d love to do psychology too”, laughs Naujalyte. “The problem with me is that I want to be too many things and physically it is not possible.”
Preservation is a major focus for the Bookmarks programme. Each year, several of the pupil’s books are kept by Trinity to be made part of its library’s permanent collection. The books are also digitised so their messages can be preserved for future generations. “We digitise the children’s books so they are both part of the past, the present and the future”, notes O’Toole-Brennan. “We don’t think about 100 years from now, we think about 1,000 years from now.”
To truly preserve one’s story, however, is to simply share it. The Bookmarks programme knows that everybody has a story to tell. It empowers its students to be the authors of their own future, the illustrators of their own destiny and its fire is catching. Entire families and whole generations of young people have now been inspired by its message. And in the case of Paris and Jordan Murphy, Roma Moorhouse and Kayla Cooling, and Milena Naujalyte and Smilte Binkyte, the Bookmarks programme will forever be a wonderful chapter in their childhood. In the words of O’Toole-Brennan, their “stories are ingrained within their spirit” and will remain with them until the end.
