Sruleen 'Young Authors' Competition!

This year, we had a 'Young Authors Competition' in the school for the children of 4th - 6th class and we are so impressed with the talent and very proud of the efforts of the children who chose to enter the competition and write their own story! Each and every child deserves a special mention for the wonderful stories that they produced!

And where better to start than Grace's spine-tingling spookster of a story called 'The Vampires'! This story is about a young girl called Ella who slowly starts to realize that all is not what it seems to be with regards to her very strange family indeed. Grace really knows how to create suspense in her writing and expertly progresses the story to a truly shocking climax!

Alisha's story - 'Who was it?' is a story of mystery and intrigue where a murder has taken place in an apartment where there are no less than 8 suspects (suspiciously, most of these suspects have the same names as children in her class!). Alisha keeps you second guessing the whole way through in this classic 'who done it' story with no shortage of twists, turns and heart in your mouth moments!

'Evil Artoeney versus Kind Artoeney' by Vincy is a wonderfully imaginative story with some of the most unique characters you will find in any story this year! My own personal favorites were Nicki, the Angel and the mad scientist! I bet you're all curious to find out who won between Evil Artoeney and Kind Artoeney, right? Well, you will have to read this fantastic story to find out!!

'Playing for Dublin' by Isabella is an uplifting story about a girl called Olivia who, inspired to improve her skills by watching Hannah Tyrell on TV, ends up playing her first big match for Dublin vs Kildare and impresses Dublin coach (and Towers man), Derek Murray, so much that he tells her that he wants her on the team full time! Isabella describes all the emotions involved in playing in big matches so well - the nerves, the excitement - but also depicts the importance of encouraging your teammates brilliantly.

'A girl in Sruleen' by Ciara is another inspirational story about a young girl called Evie who joins Sruleen school and decides to try out for the school GAA team. Initially, Evie finds playing sports to be very challenging but through hard work and perseverance, she blossoms into an outstanding player with 'phenomenal solos' no less and leads the school team to our first ever victory in Croke Park! Keep the dream alive, Ciara!

Leah took a different approach to her GAA inspired story 'The girl that went to Croker' as she explores her passion for GAA from the perspective of being a Dublin fan! It's about a girl called Cáilín who goes to see Dublin play against Derry with her Dad. Dublin come out the winners but I loved the part where Cáilin walks up to the Derry fans to console them and tell them how well they played. Leah also shows a superb understanding of when to use inverted commas which was great to see!

Lauren's story 'Dreamnight Hot Chocolate and the Five Elements' is a wonderfully entertaining, fantasy epic featuring memorable characters, crystals and missing magical girls that she clearly put a lot of time and effort into creating. Lauren has a wonderful imagination and the beautiful illustrations really bring the story to life even more!

Remember covid 19? A bit of a nightmare, right? Well, that's exactly what Tatiana's story 'Mary's nightmare' is about - a girl who predicted covid 19 happening before it even happened! Not only has Tatiana beautiful handwriting but she has a great talent for writing dialogue which is particularly evident in the numerous humorous passages that contained sibling quarrelling!

Do you like playing X box, Playstation 5 and X box? Well, 'the Console War' by Caelan is definitely the story for you! X box and Nintendo have teamed up to take down and what ensues is a war of epic proportions. All your favorite characters (Sonic, Bowser and Lara Croft to name a few) show up in this incredibly detailed, action-packed, fast-paced riot of a story that builds to an explosive climax that will take your breath away!

'Lucy the Super Dog' by Clive is quite simply a really heartwarming story about a boy called Alex who gets a new dog called Lucy who turns out not to be any old ordinary dog. Clive is clearly a very talented writer as this story just flows so seamlessly and entertains from start to finish. There's also a few lovely moments of humor that resonate such as the father's reaction to finding out that Lucy can talk! If you're a dog lover, this story is definitely the one for you!

In Ava's thought-provoking story, 'the Monster', we are introduced to a lovely girl called Bella who loves nothing more than to play with her toys at home. Then one day, to Bella's shock, she encounters a MONSTER! But there is a twist!! This particular monster is a friendly one called Jimmy and Bella and Jimmy actually become good pals as the story develops! This is a really heart-warming story that teaches us a very profound lesson - Don't judge a book by its cover! It's what's in a person's heart (or in this case, a monster's heart), that counts!

As for 'The Royal Birthday' by Alanna, I was simply blown away by this story! Alanna's incredible command of the English language defies her young years but boy does she know how to craft an endearing story. The Royal Birthday is a sophisticated fairytale that follows Bella, a young girl on her quest to find her father after being thrown away by the Queen as a baby. It's moving, surprising and always engaging and I think there is a real chance we will be seeing one of Alanna's novels on a bookshelf in Easons some day!

Ayda's story 'She had a dream' was also a highly emotional read as it was mostly based on true events - some of which I was there to witness myself! The story is about a girl called Emily and it documents Emily's special journey as a GAA player from way back when she started with St. Mary's to her 3 years of highs and lows with Sruleen to All Ireland success with the Dubs! Regarding the Sruleen section, Ayda had every detail from the past 3 years down to a tee (what a memory) but it's a really beautifully written and well structured story in its own right!

When Lilly falls into a well in the appropriately titled 'Into the well' by Niamh, we become immersed into the magical land of the Mr. Men! Lilly goes on quite the adventure as she helps the Mr. Men Garda investigate the case of who pushed Mr. Bump off the balcony. Niamh is so skilled at creating visuals in your mind with her writing that you almost feel like you are there in Mr, Men land with Lilly in this highly entertaining story. The illustrations are also gorgeous!

In Ella's 'Playing for Ireland', we are invited into the mind-space of the feisty and ultra competitive Irish international footballer, Emily, as she takes on England in the semi-final and France in the final. In this story, Ella masters the 'stream of consciousness' style of writing so well that it would make Joyce proud. The descriptions of the action itself are very vivid but above all, this story is absolutely hilarious at times - plenty of 'laugh out loud' moments were had!

The best phrase I can come up with to describe Kyra-Jane's 'The Tables have turned' is 'a wild ride'! You want romance? This story has it! You want double crossing? Well, this story has even more of that! You want to be thoroughly entertained by an action-packed story with lots of twists, well, this is the story for you! Kyra-Jane was one of her best players in our school GAA season this year! Well, now we can add 'Creative Writing' to the ever-expanding list of talents that she has! Wonderful stuff!

And last but most certainly not least is Sophia's 'Jealousy'! (The actual title is longer than that but I don't want to give away the ending!). Dance competitions are just a bit of fun right? Sure, everyone wants to win and they can get a bit competitive at times but generally all the competitors want to see their rivals do well, right? Well, not quite! In this story, we see how the human emotion of jealousy can become just a little bit too all-consuming and maybe get way, way out of hand!!! Sophia has a natural talent for humorous writing but what she is most brilliant at is being able is writing convincingly from the viewpoints of her very distinctive characters and I certainly hope Sophia will continue to explore her talent for Creative Writing as she moves on to Secondary school!

We are delighted to report that there are some wonderfully talented young authors here in Sruleen! I also should thank our wonderful SNA, Christine, who really enjoyed reading all the stories and being part of the judicial process. Hopefully, these children will use this experience to continue to create new stories and that other children in the school may also feel inspired to engage in creative writing as it is a very rewarding and exciting endeavour once you put your mind to it.