Culture vulture

15th April 2005, 1:00am

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Culture vulture

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/culture-vulture-20
Andrea Brewster enjoys the whole-school approach to pantomime

Best book ever

Throughout my life I have been given books that have opened doors. The first was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which had a big influence because it was about family relationships and dynamics. As the eldest of five, that was very much part of my life. I was given Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s A Pictorial Read as a biology prize and went on to read everything he had written. Another was Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was given to me by a geography teacher. Again, it was the psychology that fascinated me.

Best film ever

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean at the Castle Cinema in Pickering, a fleapit with deep red velvet seats, a stuffed badger and real mugs of coffee. The film was thrilling and romantic, but also funny and scary. My husband and I kept repeating lines from it to each other.

Inspiring production

Last month the whole school, including the cleaner, went to see Snow White (pictured) at the Theatre Royal in York, adapted and performed by Nick Lane with only one other actor, Fiona Wass. There was just us in the theatre, so it felt special. It was hilarious. I just loved watching the children’s faces. Nick Lane played one of the dwarves on his knees. He explained that all the dwarves had gone off to star in a film, but he was too tall.

To share with children

A picture book, Susan Chandler’s Vegetable Glue, illustrated by Elena Odriozola (Meadowside Children’s Books, pound;4.99). It’s so funny and the illustrations are exquisite.

Looking forward to

Building up the bookshop. Gervase Phinn came in to talk about his work last month, and we have a reading club and a writing group meeting there. People in the town really want it to work. We’re holding school book fairs and I’m excited about developing a relationship with local schools. It’s so thrilling being invited to talk about books.

Andrea Brewster is school librarian and general teaching assistant at St Benedict’s RC primary, a small rural school in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire.

Last December she opened Summit, a bookshop in Kirkbymoorside, with her husband Paul (www.summit.seekbooks.co.uk). She was talking to Elaine Williams

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