Books By Us – 2021

Hip-hip-hooray – Books By Us is back for 2021!

This wonderful 10-week literacy program, developed and headed by professional author, Nansi Kunze, makes real-life authors out of primary school students.

Students will learn everything there is to know about publishing, from writing and editing right through to printing the final product. They’ll even get to attend their own red carpet book launch! All books produced during Books By Us will be available for EVERYONE to borrow through West Gippsland Libraries.

This year, West Gippsland Libraries offered Books By Us to public schools in the South Gippsland area. We’re delighted to announce Loch Primary School as this year’s lucky Books By Us recipient.

Nansi and our program coordinator Michelle had their first session with the students on Thursday 15th of July. Nansi and the 4//5/6 students at Loch Primary School worked through an amazing amount of content before starting on planning their own book. The students watched a video produced by Nansi, interviewing people who work behind the scenes creating books- an editor, a marketing manager, a graphic designer and a printer.

Nansi said, ‘It was so much fun I forgot to take pics! Some of the cool ideas kids are already working on: a compendium of dragon-slaying, a gymnastics horror story & a Vexx style drawing guide!’ Thank you to the staff and students of Loch Primary School for their enthusiasm and excellent listening skills!

We’ll be following the Books By Us journey on our Facebook page and our blog. You can also follow Nansi on Twitter. Nansi was recently interviewed by ABC Gippsland Breakfast, and you can listen to the interview here.

The Books By Us program is offered for free to schools and is funded by West Gippsland Libraries, the Victorian Writers’ Centre and the Grace Marion Wilson Trust. The program aims to promote community literacy, build an ongoing relationship between schools and libraries, and foster a sense of purpose in students’ learning. 

The titles from our 2019 collaboration with Trafalgar Primary School can be borrowed using your West Gippsland Libraries membership. Watch this video of the Trafalgar Primary student authors talking about their Books By Us experience. We can’t wait to see what our 2021 student authors create!