WORLD BOOK DAY COMPETITION EXCERPTS
Teacher’s information
While you could use this as a slide show, it was actually designed to be printed out on A4
or (even better) A3 paper and put up around the school.
The fill in sheet is available as a Word document. Students then wander about the
school/library/designated area and try to fill in the missing information – collaboration is
to be encouraged!
For best effect, ask staff (in advance) to send/give you their favourite lines from books
and stick these up too, perhaps in a different colour or font. An extract often sticks in
the mind and at least a few students will find the book and read it if they were struck by
the excerpt.
Enjoy!
Answers
1
The lorry-driver looked ruefully at his planks in the marsh. They were now out of
sight in the mud. Uncle Quentin, feeling rather foolish in pyjamas and rugs, spoke
to him…
TITLE: Five go to Smuggler’s Top
2
AUTHOR: Enid Blyton
Mr Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead with a long, white
finger.
‘I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,’ he said softly. ‘Thirteen and a half
inches. Yew. Powerful wand…’
TITLE: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
2
Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom which was empty except for
Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard…
TITLE: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
2
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
But Neville was clearly steeling himself to do something desperate.
‘I won’t let you do it,’ he said, hurrying to stand in front of the portrait hole. ‘I’ll –
I’ll fight you!’
TITLE: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
3
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
Saxon Winebald went off to Rome with his dad and his brother Willibald. (Note: I
did not make up these silly names. Blame their dad, Saint Richard the Saxon.)
TITLE: The Smashing Saxons
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
9743
Page 1 of 35
WORLD BOOK DAY COMPETITION EXCERPTS
4
I had my football. I had a chance.
I kept telling myself that over and over again. But the world stayed stubbornly
black about me, and I could feel the water slowly chilling me to death.
TITLE: Kensuke’s Kingdom
5
AUTHOR: Michael Morpurgo
Children also discovered that if they wore the mask and blew very hard, the air
rushed out of the side and made a very rude noise. The punishment for doing this
in school was usually a whack with the cane!
TITLE: The Blitzed Brits
5
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
Munitions factories (which made shells, bullets and explosives) were disguised as
duck ponds so that the enemy bombers couldn’t pick them out.
TITLE: The Blitzed Brits
5
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
The Second World War was very different from every war the British people had
ever been in before. It wasn’t just soldiers who faced death and injury every day…
TITLE: The Blitzed Brits
6
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
But then. Panic. There in front of him, in the middle of the road, rearing up and
whinnying, was a huge black horse, its hooves flailing the air. James just managed
to swerve round it and brought the car to a skidding halt, ten feet away.
TITLE: Silverfin
7
AUTHOR: Charlie Higson
It was only now, when it was too late, that they began to realise that none of this
added up. A car that had crashed on the motorway would have simply pulled onto
the hard shoulder – if it had been able to drive at all.
TITLE: Snakehead
7
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
Ash had warned him to keep his eyes open and perhaps it was thanks to him that
Alex spotted the man on the other side of the road, half hidden behind a vegetable
stall.
TITLE: Snakehead
7
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
The next minute was the longest of Alex’s life. He could feel himself moving but
he could see nothing. When he tried to look, everything was a swirl of dark grey
and the water beat against his eyes.
TITLE: Snakehead
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
9743
Page 2 of 35
WORLD BOOK DAY COMPETITION EXCERPTS
8
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first
entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the
surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or
other of their daughters.
TITLE: Pride and Prejudice
9
AUTHOR: Jane Austen
He swallowed. His throat was very dry. He had crossed a line; from the ordinary
world of carol singers and bicycles and model shops into this bizarre world where a
dead man sat calmly at his desk, forever frozen in the act of writing a letter.
TITLE: Double or Die
10
AUTHOR: Charlie Higson
‘Convicts, sergeant?’ asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.
‘Ay!’ returned the sergeant, ‘two. They're pretty well known to be out on the
marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of ‘em before dusk. Anybody here
seen anything of any such game?’
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of me.
TITLE: Great Expectations
11
AUTHOR: Charles Dickens
‘But I’ll find him,’ he said fiercely. ‘I’ll find him somehow.’
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how much I really believed all this about a white lion. I
just didn’t think lions could be white.
TITLE: The Butterfly Lion
12
AUTHOR: Michael Morpurgo
Despite flying into the brightness of the morning, Wendy, in her flimsy sundress,
gave a shiver for the sunlight was thinner and paler than she remembered. The
shadows were longer – some rocky pinnacles and pine trees had three or four
shadows all sprawling in different directions. Wendy knew they had been right to
come: all was not right in Neverland.
TITLE: Peter Pan in Scarlet
13
AUTHOR: Geraldine McCaughrean
Mole thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along,
suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a
river before – this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling,
gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh
playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. The mole
was bewitched, entranced, fascinated.
TITLE: The Wind in the Willows
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
AUTHOR: Kenneth Grahame
9743
Page 3 of 35
WORLD BOOK DAY COMPETITION EXCERPTS
14
A secret’s a weighty thing to carry. I wondered often if I should hunt Myrddin out
and tell him about Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr. After all, I was meant to be his spy,
wasn’t I? I couldn’t decide.
TITLE: Here Lies Arthur
15
AUTHOR: Philip Reeve
Tom was thinking about the Past, that Time made so far away. Time had taken this
Present of Hatty’s and turned it into his Past.
TITLE: Tom’s Midnight Garden
16
AUTHOR: Philippa Pearce
Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain. Many years later Meggie had only to
close her eyes and she could still hear it, like tiny fingers tapping on the
windowpane.
TITLE: Inkheart
16
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
‘All books are in safe hands with me,’ replied Elinor, sounding cross. ‘You know
that. They’re my children, my inky children and I look after them well. I keep the
sunlight away from their pages, I dust them and protect them from hungry
bookworms and grubby human fingers. This one shall have a place of honour…’
TITLE: Inkheart
16
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
Farid left, going the same way that Dustfinger had gone the night before,
disappearing as if the ghosts who lurked in the darkness had eaten him alive.
TITLE: Inkheart
17
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
‘My darling,’ she said at last, ‘are you sure you don’t mind being a mouse for the
rest of your life?’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like so
long as somebody loves you.’
TITLE: The Witches
18
AUTHOR: Roald Dahl
Simon Mayo showed perfect timing when he said excitedly, ‘And Lineker scored the
equaliser thirteen minutes before the end. Talk about a last minute goal!’
TITLE: Foul Football
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
AUTHOR: Michael Coleman
9743
Page 4 of 35
WORLD BOOK DAY COMPETITION EXCERPTS
19
Then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away from
where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off... she
found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under
her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.
TITLE: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
19
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly
there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened,
turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was
sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more
delicious.
TITLE: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
19
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
‘He knows that unless I have blood as the Law says, all Narnia will be overturned
and perish in fire and water.’
‘It is very true,’ said Aslan. ‘I do not deny it.’
TITLE: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
20
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
Holly pointed to her new blue eye. ‘We’ll always be a part of each other now.’
Artemis tapped the cheek below his fairy hazel eye. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for you.’
‘Was that a joke? My goodness, you are changing.’
TITLE: Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
AUTHOR: Eoin Colfer
9743
Page 5 of 35
The lorry-driver looked ruefully at
his planks in the marsh. They were
now out of sight in the mud. Uncle
Quentin, feeling rather foolish in
pyjamas and rugs, spoke to him…
Competition
Excerpt 1
TITLE: Five go to Smuggler’s Top
AUTHOR: 1
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 6 of 35
Mr Ollivander touched the lightning
scar on Harry’s forehead with a long,
white finger.
‘I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that
did it,’ he said softly. ‘Thirteen and a
half inches. Yew. Powerful wand…’
TITLE: 2
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 2a
Page 7 of 35
Professor McGonagall pointed them
into a classroom which was empty
except for Peeves, who was busy
writing rude words on the blackboard…
Competition
Excerpt 2b
TITLE: 2
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 8 of 35
But Neville was clearly steeling himself
to do something desperate.
‘I won’t let you do it,’ he said, hurrying
to stand in front of the portrait hole.
‘I’ll – I’ll fight you!’
TITLE: 2
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 2c
Page 9 of 35
Saxon Winebald went off to Rome with
his dad and his brother Willibald.
(Note: I did not make up these silly
names. Blame their dad, Saint Richard
the Saxon.)
TITLE: The Smashing Saxons
AUTHOR: 3
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 3
Page 10 of 35
I had my football. I had a chance.
I kept telling myself that over and over
again. But the world stayed stubbornly
black about me, and I could feel the
water slowly chilling me to death.
Competition
Excerpt 4
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: Kensuke’s Kingdom
AUTHOR: 4
9743
Page 11 of 35
Competition
Excerpt 5a
Children also discovered
that if they wore the mask
and blew very hard, the air rushed out
of the side and made a very rude
noise. The punishment for doing this
in school was usually a whack with
the cane!
TITLE: 5
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 12 of 35
Munitions factories (which made
shells, bullets and explosives) were
disguised as duck ponds so that the
enemy bombers couldn’t pick them
out.
Competition
Excerpt 5b
TITLE: 5
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 13 of 35
The Second World War was very
different from every war the British
people had ever been in before. It
wasn’t just soldiers who faced death
and injury every day…
Competition
Excerpt 5c
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 5
AUTHOR: Terry Deary
9743
Page 14 of 35
But then. Panic. There in front of him, in the
middle of the road, rearing up and whinnying,
was a huge black horse, its hooves flailing
the air. James just managed to swerve round
it and brought the car to a skidding halt, ten
feet away.
Competition
Excerpt 6
TITLE: Silverfin
AUTHOR: 6
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 15 of 35
It was only now, when it was too late,
that they began to realise that none
of this added up. A car that had
crashed on the motorway would have
simply pulled onto the hard shoulder
– if it had been able to drive at all.
Competition
Excerpt 7a
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 7
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
9743
Page 16 of 35
Ash had warned him to keep his
eyes open and perhaps it was thanks
to him that Alex spotted the man on
the other side of the road, half hidden
behind a vegetable stall.
Competition
Excerpt 7b
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 7
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
9743
Page 17 of 35
The next minute was the longest of
Alex’s life. He could feel himself
moving but he could see nothing.
When he tried to look, everything
was a swirl of dark grey and the
water beat against his eyes.
TITLE: 7
AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 7c
Page 18 of 35
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that
a single man in possession of a good
fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of
such a man may be on his first entering a
neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in
the minds of the surrounding families, that
he is considered as the rightful property of
some one or other of their daughters.
Competition
Excerpt 8
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 8
AUTHOR: Jane Austen
9743
Page 19 of 35
Competition
Excerpt 9
He swallowed. His throat was
very dry. He had crossed a line;
from the ordinary world of carol
singers and bicycles and model shops into
this bizarre world where a dead man sat
calmly at his desk, forever frozen in the act of
writing a letter.
TITLE: Double or Die
AUTHOR: 9
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 20 of 35
‘Convicts, sergeant?’ asked Mr. Wopsle, in a
matter-of-course way.
‘Ay!’ returned the sergeant, ‘two. They're
pretty well known to be out on the marshes
still, and they won't try to get clear of ‘em
before dusk. Anybody here seen anything of
any such game?’
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with
confidence. Nobody thought of me.
TITLE: Great Expectations
AUTHOR: 10
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 10
Page 21 of 35
‘But I’ll find him,’ he said fiercely.
‘I’ll find him somehow.’
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how much
I really believed all this about a white
lion. I just didn’t think lions could be
white.
TITLE: The Butterfly Lion
AUTHOR: 11
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 11
Page 22 of 35
Despite flying into the brightness of the morning,
Wendy, in her flimsy sundress, gave a shiver for the
sunlight was thinner and paler than she
remembered. The shadows were longer – some rocky
pinnacles and pine trees had three or four shadows
all sprawling in different directions. Wendy knew
they had been right to come: all was not right in
Neverland.
Competition
Excerpt 12
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 12
AUTHOR: Geraldine McCaughrean
9743
Page 23 of 35
Mole thought his happiness was complete when, as
he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood
by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had
he seen a river before – this sleek, sinuous, fullbodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping
things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh,
to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook
themselves free, and were caught and held again.
The mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated.
TITLE: 13
AUTHOR: Kenneth Grahame
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 13
Page 24 of 35
A secret’s a weighty thing to carry. I
wondered often if I should hunt
Myrddin out and tell him about
Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr. After all, I
was meant to be his spy, wasn’t I? I
couldn’t decide.
Competition
Excerpt 14
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: Here Lies Arthur
AUTHOR: 14
9743
Page 25 of 35
Tom was thinking about
the Past, that Time
made so far away. Time
had taken this Present
of Hatty’s and turned
it into his Past.
Competition
Excerpt 15
TITLE: Tom’s Midnight Garden
AUTHOR: 15
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 26 of 35
Rain fell that night, a fine,
whispering rain. Many years
later Meggie had only to close
her eyes and she could still
hear it, like tiny fingers
tapping on the windowpane.
TITLE: 16
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 16a
Page 27 of 35
‘All books are in safe hands with me,’
replied Elinor, sounding cross. ‘You know
that. They’re my children, my inky
children and I look after them well. I
keep the sunlight away from their pages,
I dust them and protect them from
hungry bookworms and grubby human
fingers. This one shall have a place of
honour…’
TITLE: 16
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 16b
Page 28 of 35
Farid left, going the same way
that Dustfinger had gone the
night before, disappearing as if
the ghosts who lurked in the
darkness had eaten him alive.
Competition
Excerpt 16c
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: 16
AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke
9743
Page 29 of 35
‘My darling,’ she said at last, ‘are you sure
you don’t mind being a mouse for the rest of
your life?’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter
who you are or what you look like so long as
somebody loves you.’
Competition
Excerpt 17
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
TITLE: The Witches
AUTHOR: 17
9743
Page 30 of 35
Simon Mayo showed perfect
timing when he said excitedly,
‘And Lineker scored the
equaliser thirteen minutes
before the end. Talk about a
last minute goal!’
Competition
Excerpt 18
TITLE: Foul Football
AUTHOR: 18
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 31 of 35
Then she saw that there was a light
ahead of her; not a few inches away
from where the back of the wardrobe
ought to have been, but a long way off...
she found that she was standing in the
middle of a wood at night-time with
snow under her feet and snowflakes
falling through the air.
Competition
Excerpt 19a
TITLE: 19
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 32 of 35
The Queen let another drop fall from
her bottle on to the snow, and instantly
there appeared a round box, tied with
green silk ribbon, which, when opened,
turned out to contain several pounds of
the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was
sweet and light to the very centre and
Edmund had never tasted anything
more delicious.
Competition
Excerpt 19b
TITLE: 19
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Page 33 of 35
‘He knows that unless I have
blood as the Law says, all Narnia
will be overturned and perish in
fire and water.’
‘It is very true,’ said Aslan. ‘I do
not deny it.’
TITLE: 19
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
Competition
Excerpt 19c
9743
Page 34 of 35
Holly pointed to her new blue eye. ‘We’ll
always be a part of each other now.’
Artemis tapped the cheek below his fairy
hazel eye. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for you.’
‘Was that a joke? My goodness, you are
changing.’
TITLE: Artemis Fowl and the Lost
Colony
AUTHOR: 20
© 2008 www.teachit.co.uk
9743
Competition
Excerpt 20
Page 35 of 35