This book is about a young girl called Meg. Who wants to be an astronaut . There is a chance which gets her hopes starting and running.  There is a competition to go to the  Houston Space Station . Meg knows all about space, she obsessed. Meg just has one problem,  she has a phobia of  speaking in public. Everyone says try it out on some friends, but Meg doesn’t have any friends, unless you count her friends at the Sussex Stargazers club. Meg is very nervous but she feels that she can do it if she can have some peace and quiet, but Meg’s life is about to turn for the worse.

When her mum leaves unexpectedly, Meg has the job of looking after her sister and her dog. Meg’s life is now chaos. Meg is also getting in trouble, when she late for school. As she tries to keep her secret, she starts to feel for someone who is taking part in the competition. When something happens,  Meg starts to wonder will she ever go on the Houston space trip .

I loved this book because it showed true feelings and I felt like I could be in Meg’s shoes. I think anyone would enjoy it. There was nothing bad about this book except for that the chapters were quite short!

This is a great book , it has a fast pace and also cliff hangers. Stargazing for beginners is a book about friendship, love, chaos, family and finding your true self. Just remember that sometimes life needs chaos!

I recommend this book for ages 10+.

On Monday 2^nd July, we held a Litcham Cluster Book Quiz at the Secondary phase site and had a brilliant time. Teams of four students from Years 5/6, from each of the cluster primaries, a team of teachers and Year 7 students, battled it out over nine rounds of book-related questions for the LCBQ Cup. The rounds of questions ranged from Wizards to bears,  numbers to nursery rhymes and fictional places to picture books. The primary students were very impressive in their literary knowledge, and I think we are going to have some very keen readers in year 7 this year.

Congratulations to Great Massingham who came first, for the second time in a row, thrashing both the teacher and Year 7 team. Close behind them in second place were Harpley and in third place were Litcham. Well done to all the students for participating really well in a nail-biting and exciting competition.  You all represented your primary schools superbly!

Thank you to the following students who helped to run the event: Liberty, Isla Palmer, Olivia, Emily, Benjamin and George. Also to the year 7 team: Leo A, Leo B, Hannah and Harriet. The primary school staff were all very impressed with you. A big thank you also goes to the Friends of Litcham School who purchased book tokens for the winning team. 

This is an annual event, so Year’s 4 and 5 start reading widely now and let’s see if we can beat the teachers again next year!

I love this book as it was very interesting. It is about a girl called Maya: she is a teenager. One day she is out on a bus taking pictures of the beauties of London, then all of a sudden, she notices two people in the crowd. One of them is male, the other is female and they look very angry. She looks closer to see the man has a gun and is pointing it at her.

Without our realising, click, she takes a picture on her phone with the flash on – then both of them turn their head and stare at her. From then, on her life changes from seeing what she thinks is the man’s brother, dead in the River Thames, to her sister getting kidnapped.

Fearing for her safety, the police and her parents decide to send her to her aunt’s house where she gets to know Ollie her cousin. But are things better in the lonely mountains?

This is a fast-paced story with nail biting action, a puzzling mystery to solve and a heart-racing finish. What I liked best about the story is that Maya likes engineering and normally boys like that stuff. I also like the way there was a lot of action and the way it didn’t feel made up.

What I didn’t like about it is that sometimes, especially towards the end, it got a bit confusing. I didn’t always know what was happening where, and who the enemy was. I would have enjoyed it more if it was a bit simpler in the crazy parts!

Overall I really enjoyed this book and am going to give it 4.5/5. I would recommend it for students aged 9 – 13 years.