Barry Hutchison

By Guest Bloggers

On Friday the 25th of March a group of children from first year attended a trip to Auchinleck Academy to see the author Barry Hutchison. He was talking to us about some of his books, how he became an author and his childhood.

He told us a few very funny stories from his younger days. One of them was about SQUIRRELS!

Barry said that he is afraid of squirrels, because when he was five or six he was seeing his granny in Aberdeen, he saw a squirrel on the path in the park DEAD..! It was all mashed up with a leg missing and its brain pouring out its eye sockets. So now he hates squirrels!

Another one of his stories was when he was doing falconry, (because he is a bit scared of birds). He had the big glove on and the instructor gave him the bird, and said “throw it hard as you can and it will land on the perch.” So he did and it went flying through the air and kept going …AND GOING … (BY THIS TIME IT WAS WAY PAST THE PERCH)…and going till it hit a tree. It fell and flew back and bit him on the face!

We really enjoyed the trip and we definitely recommend his books to everyone of all ages.

By Kieran Madden Aaron Gilmore and Gareth Kerr


Barry Hutchison signing a book for some of our pupils.

Author visits

S2 pupils who have been enthusiatic participants in Accelerated Reader will be invited to go on the trip to Loudoun Academy to hear the author Gillian Philip talk about her work. The trip is in the morning of 15th March.

We have run a competition for S1 pupils to go to Auchinleck Academy to hear Barry Hutchinson talk about his work on 28th march. They were asked to write up to 200 words on why they wanted to go. We have 20 enthusiatic winners!

Spring Read Authors

This year's Spring Read authors are Keith Gray,Gillian Philip, Barry Hutchinson and Cathy Forde. If you are a fan and would like to be on the trip to go and see them, let me know.
To find out more about them click on the links below.
Keith Gray at Scottish Book Trust
Gillian Philip's website
Barry Hutchinson's website
Cathy Forde's website

Bookmark competition

The Doon Academy winner of the National Book Tokens bookmark competition was Siobhan Robinson (S1). Her design of a bookworm and Read 15 minutes a day was felt to be the most encouraging. The runners-up were Fraser Buchanan and Shannon Brown.

S1 Readers' Cup

Raecar, the winners!


Thursday 18th March saw the S1 round of the Readers' Cup competition. Teams from all 4 clans answered questions on Cathy MacPhail,Christmas, Baddies, Families and of course the Lucky dip round. Raecar led from the start and were clear winners. Bradan and Doon fought neck and neck until Doon ended up 2 points ahead in the final round.

The results were First Raecar, then Doon, Braddan and Finlas.

As usual, between round the audience had a chance to test their knowledge and answer some of the questions.

Congratulations and well done to all who took part.

Some of the winning team will go on to represent Doon Academy at the East Ayrshire final in June.




Audience participation!






During the quiz!







Raecar hard at work!

Theresa Breslin

A group of S2 pupils led by Miss Borthwick and Mrs Bax travelled to Kilmarnock Acacemy to hear the famous author Theresa Breslin talk about her work. She told us about using solid objects like shrapnel and gas masks to help with her ideas for stories. She explained about the 3Ps that she uses - People, Place and Plot, which are the ingredients of a good story. Ms Breslin read excerpts from Remembrance Divided City and told the pupils about the background to the stories. To help keep everyone interested there was a raffle with her books as prizes.
At the end she signed pictures of her book covers. Ross Tait asked a question and won a signed poster of Divided City.

Readers' Cup S2

Friday 12th March saw the hotly contested S2 round of the Readers' Cup quiz. The question topics were Keith Gray, Lucky dip, Crime & detectives, Horror and Scottish connections. The quiz was closely contested until the last rounds when leaders started to emerge. The winners were Raecar with a clear lead of 3 points over their next rival Doon. Thanks for S6 pupils for marking the quizzes.

Keith Gray trip

On Tuesday 9th March, Mrs Dorans' S2 class went to Auchinleck Academy to hear the famous author Keith Gray. Keith was very entertaining and told stories about his childhood adventures, travelling with his friend to Keith in Scotland and being a bear in a carnival parade. He also read from some of his books. Everyone enjoyed the event and thought he was great fun.

Cathy MacPhail visits Doon

The famous author Cathy MacPhail visited our library on Monday 8th March and spoke to S1 as well as some visitors from Auchinleck Academy as part of our Spring Read programme. Cathy chatted to pupils for an hour on her books, how she gets her ideas and what makes a good story. She has inspired some of our budding writers to put pen to paper.

Michael Rosen event

Click here to go to the BBC Author Live event and see Michael Rosen talking.

"Although he claims to have become a children's poet by accident he's become a great performer of his own work and is guaranteed to engage and entertain the audience. Michael will be telling stories from his childhood and performing a selection of his poems."

Spring Read Logo Competition

The lucky winner of the Logo Competition was Liam Haining S3. The runners-up were Siobhan Robinson and Nicky Fairbairn, both in S1. Well done to all of them.

Cathy Cassidy

Local author Cathy Cassidy popped in to school the other day to be interviewed by some S1 pupils for our BBC School News Report.

Cathy MacPhail

We took 15 S3 pupils to hear the author Catherine MacPhail speak at Kilmarnock Academy. Despite arriving late, she chatted away for nearly an hour and answered questions from an enthusiastic audience. She spoke mainly about the Nemesis series and her new books.

Cathy Forde visit

The author Cathy Forde came to Doon yesterday as part of the Spring Read Festival. Some of our S1 and S2 were joined by pupils from Auchinleck, Cumnock and St Joseph's Academies.

Cathy Forde talked for about 40 minutes and then answered questions from the audience.

She spoke about several of her books, how she got ideas for stories, how she managed to turn them into books, how she redrafts her works up to 100 times until she is happy with it.

She was very entertaining and enjoyable.

Spring Read Logo Competition

The winning design for the Logo Competition was by Hazel Limond.

The runners up were Selina White and Lauren Young.

Spring Read

For this year's Spring Read Festival we are having two author visits.
Catherine Forde is coming here to talk to some S1 and S2 pupils on 24th February in the afternoon about Fat Boy Swim.

We are taking a group of S3 pupils to hear Catherine MacPhail talk about her work at Kilmarnock Academy on 18th March.

Spring read news

Great news! We have funding for the Spring Read programme in 2009.

Catherine MacPhail visit

On Thursday 20th March, the author Catherine MacPhail came to Doon Academy. Pupils from Cumnock and Auchinleck academies came to join us here and listen to her very entertaining talk.

She chatted about some of her books and where she had got the original ideas from. I am sure that lots of pupils will be borrowing her books from the Library next week. Towards the ned of her talk she decribed a ghost story set is a school. She asked the pupils to imagine lots of creepy things that might happen in a dark school library in the evening once people had gone home. Loads of people came up with creepy suggestions, fortunately none of them featured homicidal librarians!

After the talk she was happy to chat to pupils and sign autographs.

Spring Read

We have had a Scholastic Book Fair in the library for the last few days. Pupils have had a chance to browse and buy books, posters and stationery. The winner of the logo competition was Ryan in S1 and Amy, Lauren, Ainsley, Tom and Gemma all won vouchers for the Book Fair for their book jackets and reviews.

S1 Readers'Cup competition

The S1 section of the Doon Academy Readers' Cup competition was held in the Assembly Hall on Tuesady morm 27th March 2007. There were four very strong teams and competition was expected to be fierce. The topics the teams had to answer questions on were Lucky dip, Baddies, Mythical creatures, Cathy Cassidy and Humour. Mythical creatures proved to be the hardest section. The winning team of Darren, Ryan, Lisa and Bronwynn scored a fantastic total of 31 points out of 50, which is a record for Doon! The final scores were:

1. Bradan 31 points,


2. Finlas 29 points,


3. Doon 28 points,


4. Raecar 26 points.

All the participants won prizes for their efforts and some lucky and knowledgeable audience members won spot prizes as the audience had questions to answer too.