News & Events
News/Events
On 27 November teachers in five Edinburgh schools fought to keep the attention of their restless classes, as they awaited a visit from CBBC star Raven, aka James Mackenzie.
As part of the Our City project the ten authors of the book visited children at Oxgangs, Lorne, Balgreen, Sciennes and Tollcross Primary Schools early in November. Following these visits the children got a second treat as the book’s introducer James Mackenzie went into the schools to talk about the project and the importance of reading.
And the children were certainly not disappointed. James tirelessly answered a multitude of questions about the book, his TV show, and himself, ranging from some well thought out questions like:
What’s your favourite book?
What’s it like to be on TV?
What’s it like being Raven?
Have you ever done the challenges on ‘Raven’?
Where has Raven been filmed?
Why is the show based on a raven and not some other animal?
What’s your favourite challenge on Raven?
To the more bizarre and thought-provoking:
Is your beard real?
How do you make the children on ‘Raven’ disappear?
Can you really turn into a bird?
Are your feathers real?
But of course one question in particular came up at every school: ‘Can you do the Raven voice for us?’ Never have the words, ‘Let the challenge begin’ induced so many cheers and screams of delight.
A teacher at Sciennes Primary commented, ‘The children are more excited about this than about Santa coming!’ But the most memorable part of the day for me was at Lorne Primary when James returned the question, ‘What is your favourite book?’, to the young girl who had asked him, to which she simply replied, ‘Our City’.
Visit the Our City gallery to see pictures of the day's events.
Learn more about Raven on his BBC homepage.
