The lunch time Story Writing club in the library held a competition before Christmas for it’s members. The challenge was to write a short story based on a traditional fairy tale but to tell it from a different point of view, such as the wolf in ‘The Three Little Pigs’ or one of the ugly step-sisters in ‘Cinderella’. Our winner and runner-up chose two very well-known stories, 'Jack and The Beanstalk' and 'Snow White'. They both did a great job in re-telling the story but ultimately the winner was Leah Herbert in Year 8. Well done to Sophie Norton from Year 8 for claiming the runner-up position. Both students received a signed book and Leah also won a £10 WH Smith voucher.
Have a read of Leah’s story below.
Once upon a time there lived a lonely giant who lived all alone up in the beautiful blue sky. All he ever wanted was a friend. Every day he read books about friendship and wished he could have a best friend or even multiple friends.
One day when he was reading his books, he started to feel trembling and shaking, so he ran outside to see what was going on. All he could see was a huge green thing that looked like a beanstalk! At first the giant was very confused until he looked down and saw a small human climbing up the huge stalk. The giant had never seen a real human before, only in his books, so when he saw this tiny version he got immediately scared and ran away to hide. He ran all through each and every room until he spotted his giant wardrobe and decided to stay in there until he felt the human had gone. He sat in his wardrobe for what seemed like hours but eventually he couldn't hear anything and he decided to see if the human had done anything.
When he left the wardrobe everything seemed fine; all the rooms were the same… until he got to the kitchen. It was a huge mess! All the cupboards were open; all of the knives, forks and spoons were all over the floor. The giant was in shock and then he noticed something tiny was moving on the table and trying to hide under one of the bowls. It was the human! They both screamed and the small creature tried to run away, so the giant chased him.
As the giant was so huge and the human so tiny the giant caught up to the human easily. The giant grabbed the human by his t-shirt, took him to the living room and placed him carefully on the sofa. The giant asked, "Why have you broken into my castle?" The human was silent and just stared at the giant. The giant then went on to tell the child that he really wanted a friend and wasn't going to hurt him. After talking for a few minutes the human started to answer the giant, told him he was sorry and that he needed to go home. The giant agreed, although he was sad because he really wanted a friend. However, as the child was leaving and when the giant was looking the other way, the child stole one of the giant's magic golden eggs!
As the child was heading down the beanstalk, the giant realised what had happened and tried to go down after him but he was too heavy and ended up snapping the beanstalk. Both the giant and the human fell but the giant, being a kind creature, tried to break the child's fall with himself. It worked and the child was saved but, sadly, the child's mother just thought that the giant was trying to hurt her son and she left the giant on the ground to rot and die. When the giant did die, the mother and child sold the golden egg and became very rich. They lived a happy life but we can't say the same for the giant...!"
- Leah Herbert, Year 8
