Innholdsfortegnelse for 249 i The Week Junior

A NATURE-LOVING TEENAGER This year’s Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing has been awarded to 16-year-old Dara McAnulty from Northern Ireland for his book, Diary of a Young Naturalist. The diary documents the time that McAnulty spent in nature between his 14th and 15th birthdays. THE GREAT NORTH RUN This year the Great North Run went virtual. The popular half-marathon normally takes place in north-east England, but was cancelled because of coronavirus. Instead, people downloaded a free app to take part, for the event’s 40th year. Almost 17,000 people in 57 countries either ran or walked 13.1 miles to raise money for charity. WELCOMING A BABY RHINO On 8 September, West Midland Safari Park in Worcestershire, England, welcomed the first Indian rhino to be born there in 47 years. A…

20 September 1973 The “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match On 20 September 1973, the 29-year-old women’s tennis champion Billie Jean King took on former men’s world champion Bobby Riggs and beat him. Before the match, Riggs had boasted that women were not as good as men, and that as a 55-year-old he could still beat any female player. The game was a huge media event, watched on TV by more than 50 million people worldwide. Billie Jean King’s victory changed people’s attitudes about women’s abilities in general, not only in tennis.…

This year, the National Trust is celebrating its 125th birthday. The organisation, which protects historic homes, countryside and coastline in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, depends on a huge team of people – from shepherds to seal wardens. Hanne Siebers volunteers as a seal warden at Blakeney National Nature Reserve, on the Norfolk coast in England. Within the reserve is Blakeney Point, a four-mile stretch of shingle, sand dunes and mud flats that stretches out into the North Sea. It’s home to the country’s largest grey seal colony, with around 3,000 pups born there each year. “The big open sky with the wind and the birds is really something magic, like being at the end of the world,” Siebers tells The Week Junior. She drives a Land Rover to work…

Sometimes it can be difficult to work out what school kit you have, and it’s easy to create unwanted waste by replacing things that you haven’t completely used up. To keep track, why not make an inventory – or list – of what you have? To get started, collect up all your school supplies (don’t forget to empty out all your bags and pockets), and arrange them in groups – pens, pencils, notebooks, etc. Now write down how many you have of each. You can include details like the colour of pencils or how full your notebooks are. If you have more than one of something, you could give it to someone else, or put it in a safe place for later (and note where it is!). By being organised,…

Pine martens are mostly found in Scotland, but have been reintroduced to England and Wales in the past few years. New research from Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, has found that numbers of red squirrels increase in areas where pine martens live. The researchers say this is because pine martens prey on plentiful grey squirrels, rather than endangered red ones. ● LIFESPAN: Up to eight years. ● HABITAT: Woodlands or rocky hillsides. ● DIET: Small rodents, birds, eggs, insects and fruit. ● FUN FACT: Pine martens’ poo can sometimes look blue or red. This is because of the bilberries, rowan berries and blackberries that they eat.…

Clinical trials are studies that test treatments in people. Some test new treatments to see if they’re safe, and how well they work. Others compare a new treatment with an existing one, to see which is better. All trials monitor the kind of side effects that a treatment causes, and some test ways to reduce them. Many of the world’s most successful clinical trials to find better treatments for children with cancer, have been funded by Cancer Research UK. They include one called SIOPEL-6, which found a way to reduce the chances of young people with a certain type of liver cancer developing hearing loss (which can happen as a result of the treatment). For many young people with cancer, their treatment will include the chance to take part in…

Upside-down toy boat appears to defy gravity In an experiment that seems to defy the laws of gravity, scientists in France have made a small toy boat float upside down, on a layer of liquid suspended in mid-air. Objects normally float when the upward push of the water around them (known as buoyancy) is greater than the downward pull of gravity (their weight). A rule called Archimedes’ principle shows that an object’s buoyancy depends on its density – a measure of how heavy a thing is compared with its size. For instance, a metal nail may weigh much less than a boat, but it sinks because it has a higher density than water. A heavy boat will float because it is hollow and filled with air, so it is less…

What’s Black and White and Red All Over? by Gyles Brandreth (Penguin Random House Children’s UK) Discover some of the best (and worst!) jokes ever in this compendium, brought together by Gyles Brandreth. Including classic “knock, knock” and “doctor, doctor” jokes, it will make you both laugh and groan – and also includes some advice to help you perfect your joke-telling skills. Football School: The Incredible Joke Book by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton (Walker Books) What’s a striker’s favourite magic routine? A hat trick! Why was the peacock sent off? It was a professional fowl! Football fans of all ages will love this entertaining collection of spectacularly silly sports-themed jokes, from the team behind the bestselling Football School series. Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Joke Book Illustrated by Quentin Blake (Puffin…

What’s the best thing about being Children’s Laureate? I’d usually say meeting so many families, teachers and librarians, but that’s been a bit tricky recently. So I’ll say getting to talk about what I think is really important: how crucial books are, to all of us, and how everyone should have access to them. What makes you bored? I have to say I very rarely get bored. Between writing and illustrating my books, and the Laureateship, there isn’t that much time left over… Have you ever broken a bone? Yes, very recently in fact. I fell off my garden wall and cracked a rib in April and it’s still not healed… Would you rather eat cake or cookies? Cake for birthdays and cookies for day-to-day, although I try not to…

Oscars bring in new diversity rules The organisers of the world’s most famous film awards are bringing in new diversity rules for their biggest prize. The Academy Awards (better known as the Oscars) are given out annually to actors, filmmakers and technical staff. The top prize each year is awarded for Best Picture – the film that Oscar voters consider to be the best release of the previous year. From 2024, films will have to meet new diversity rules in order to be nominated for Best Picture. The rules cover four categories of a film’s production, and films must meet the new rules for at least two of these categories. They can do this by having people of different genders and races involved in the making of the film, either…

Nintendo 64 Released in 1996 in Japan and North America, and 1997 in Europe, the N64 won praise for its 3D graphics, as well as for enabling four people to play at once. However, its main rival was Sony’s first PlayStation, which sold a lot more. GameCube The N64’s follow-up came out in 2001 in Japan and North America, and in 2002 elsewhere. Its cube design was striking, and it was also one of the first consoles to allow online gaming. However, it was less popular than rivals PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Wii You couldn’t accuse the Wii of being unpopular: released in 2006, it was a massive hit across the world. Its big selling point was the Wiimote, which used hand motions to control games.…

Cheltenham Literature Festival goes digital This year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival will be taking place through a variety of digital and in-person, socially distanced events from 2–10 October. Join exciting authors and illustrators including Greg James and Chris Smith, Liz Pichon, Anthony Horowitz, Rob Biddulph, Nizrana Farook and many more, and remember to listen out for the winner of the only UK children’s poetry award – CLiPPA – which will be announced live at the Festival on 9 October. Explore everything they’ve got in store at cheltenhamliteraturefestival.com…

School: Rugby Free Primary School, Warwickshire “Mr Foster is a really funny teacher who makes doing school work fun. He is good at dancing and making assault courses in his garden for PE. During lockdown he would leave encouraging voice messages about our work.” Edward If we pick your teacher as Teacher of the Week, we’ll sendyourschoolthreefreeissuesof The Week Junior. Send your nominations, along with a picture of your teacher and your school’s full name and address, to hello@theweekjunior.co.uk Please include your full name and address so that we can send you a Roving Reporter badge if your contribution makes it onto the page. We will only use the details you provide to arrange delivery of badges, and we will not share them with anyone else. By submitting your reports…

Sleepovers with a horse are on offer at a bed and breakfast in Cumbria, England. Rooms at Stable Stays come with a real horse – either a Shetland pony or a Friesian – along with a mini-kitchen, cotton sheets and fairy lights. The horse sleeps in its own quarters, separated by a see-through divider, and guests can stroke its nose from their bunk bed. So is this story real? Yes or neigh?*…

1 What does “Rosh Hashanah” mean in Hebrew? a) Head of the year b) End of the year c) Day of the year a □ b □ c □ 2 True or false? The Vikings played a board game called Hnefatafl. 3 Which football team has a large following in the Ghanaian town of Juaben? 4 What is the name of the robot that wrote an article for The Guardian? a) GPT-1 b) GPT-2 c) GPT-3 a □ b □ c □ 5 True or false? In German, seals are called sea-dogs. 6 Which family of animals includes badgers, otters and ferrets? 7 Where do pine martens usually live? a) In woodlands and rocky hillsides b) In the ocean c) In the desert a □ b □ c □ 8…

Former Blue Peter presenter Barney Harwood has two main passions in life – food and photography. This makes him the ideal person to share some of his top tips on how to take great photos of food. Harwood says his love of food started when he got his first job in TV. He was taken to a restaurant where he had a perfect steak. “It was vibrancy and flavour I had never seen before.” Harwood tells The Week Junior. He got into photography when he told his dad what a great time he was having working at CBBC. “I interviewed David Beckham on Monday, was at Buckingham Palace with the Queen on Thursday. My dad said, ‘Wow, I bet you’ve got some great photos.’ But I didn’t.” So Harwood started…

Dan Kane , Reptile keeper, ZSL London Zoo Reptile keepers use extremely long tools to clean windows and pick up things like water bowls and uneaten food, so we rarely have to actually go into the animal’s territory – instead we work from a hatch above. If we do need to go inside, keepers gently encourage the cobra into a secondary enclosure at the rear of its main home while we work, before letting them back out once we’re done. Enjoy unlimited visits to ZSL London and Whipsnade Zoos, plus a host of other benefits with ZSL Membership. Find out more at zsl.org/membership/zsl-membership…

Wizards of Once: Never and Forever by Cressida Cowell (Hachette Children’s Group) Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell returns with the fourth and fi nal instalment of her marvellously magical Wizards of Once series. Wizard boy Xar and Warrior girl Wish are close to completing their epic quest to save the wildwoods. To do so, they and their loyal band of followers must journey deep into the Miserable Mines of Unhappiness and defeatt the horrifying Tazzelwurm monster, before finally facing the Kingwitch himself. Time is running out, so can they lift the curse – or will witches reign forever? The pages of this funny, clever adventure story are bursting with lots of exuberant artwork. It’s a brilliant conclusion to a wonderful series. *If you are the competition winner, we will only use…

You may not know the name Robert Paul, but without him British films and cinema might not be as popular as they are now. In 1895, Paul, who was an electrical engineer, invented the Theatrograph, which was an early projector for people to watch moving images. A similar machine called the Kinetoscope already existed in the US. However, only one person could watch at a time, through a small viewing window. So Paul developed the Theatrograph, which was first used in public in 1896 and proved a huge success. This led Paul into filmmaking. He is credited with making some of the UK’s first-ever fiction films, short comedies, colour films, and news footage. In total, Paul made 779 films. In much the same way that Paul is not well known…

Animal Farm DVD, Prime Video The UK wasn’t making many animated feature films in the 1950s, and that makes this striking adaptation of George Orwell’s novella (a short novel) all the more interesting. It tells the story of Manor Farm, where the animals overthrow the human owners and take control. The book is regularly studied in schools, so this film is a good accompaniment. It does make one or two notable changes to the original book though, so there’s much to discuss when the movie ends. Even now it stands as an impressive piece of work. BUSY MAN Actor Maurice Denham voiced every character in the film.…

Hannah Cockroft She set four personal bests at the British Wheelchair Athletic Association Grand Prix in Stoke Mandeville, England. Naomi Osaka and Dominic Thiem They won the women’s and men’s titles at the US Open in New York, which was the first major tennis competition since February. Mirim Lee Lee, from South Korea, was the winner of the ANA Inspiration event, one of the five major tournaments in women’s golf. Maya Gabeira The Brazilian surfer broke her own world record for the largest wave ever surfed by a woman. The enormous wave measured 22.4 metres high.…

Do you talk to older people about what life was like when they were young? Perhaps you enjoy finding out what major events, such as the Second World War, were actually like for the people who lived through them? Oral history means listening to these stories and asking questions of the people who remember them. This year you have been living through the coronavirus pandemic. It is, and will be remembered as, an important time in history. In the years ahead you can talk about what it was like in lockdown, and your experience of not being at school as much. Your children and grandchildren will be interested in your experiences of it. It’s a good idea to make recordings of oral history conversations so that they can be kept…

One story that really caught my eye this week is our lead feature on Science and technology – page 14. In a fascinating experiment, Japanese scientists have discovered that some bacteria are hardy enough to survive on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The colony has clung on for a remarkable three years in truly inhospitable conditions – freezing cold temperatures and no oxygen. The conclusion of this is that bacteria could one day survive long journeys through space – and that could have big implications for the future of space exploration. It’s easy to forget about the International Space Station when we’re stuck down here on Earth, wondering what’s for dinner or what we’re going to do at the weekend. And yet humans, from many different countries,…

Follow The Week Junior on PopJam@TheWeekJunior. You can download the PopJam app from the App Store or Google Play. We asked our PopJammers if punctuation is important... “Yes, otherwise you will get confused.” “It’s useful but annoying!” “Yes, otherwise you won’t know if someone is writing a question. When you are reading a long paragraph out loud, you might not have any space to take a breath.” “Yes, it sets the mood of a sentence.” Tell us what you think of this week’s issue and we’ll print some of the best comments here.…

On 13 September, the World Health Organization recorded a record one-day rise in the number of new coronavirus infections. There were 307,930 new infections worldwide, with the biggest increases being in Brazil, India and the US. This took the number of people confirmed to have Covid-19 globally to more than 28 million. On 18 September, Israel became the first country to bring in a second national lockdown. In Europe, Spain currently has the highest number of infections.…

● On 8 September, The Guardian published an article written by a robot called GPT-3. The robot wrote a series of articles using artificial intelligence (AI), which real journalists then put together. ● AI is when a computer learns from experience and can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. ● The purpose of the article was for GPT-3 to convince humans that robots pose no threat to them. ● Studies show that up to 20 million factory jobs worldwide could be taken by robots in the next 10 years.…

Water Voles More than 100 water voles are to be released into a North Yorkshire valley. These endangered mammals used to be common in UK rivers, but are now at risk of extinction. The captive-bred animals will be kept in special pens and then released into Timble Ings Woods in the Washburn Valley. Smooth handfish The smooth handfish has become the first marine fish species to be declared extinct. There are concerns that other types of handfish, such as the red handfish (pictured) could soon follow. The fish get their name because they use their fins like hands to move along the sea bed.…

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a time to increase public awareness and understanding of cancers that affect young people, and recognise the work that scientists across the UK and around the world are doing to help more people survive cancer and maintain a good quality of life. What is cancer? To understand cancer, you must understand cells. These are the building blocks of all living things. There are lots of different types of cells, which each have a different job to do. A human body is made up of more than 30 trillion of them. Every cell contains instructions, and produces signals in the body to control how much and how often they grow and divide, so that your body has just the right number. If any of…

Construction of the ISS began on 20 November 1998, and took more than a decade. The station has had people on board continuously since 2 November 2000, and has become the leading outpost for astronauts carrying out countless space-based missions and research projects. ISS experiments have studied how living things and materials are affected by weightless conditions on the station, as well as exposure to outer space. Long-duration astronaut missions to the ISS are also helping space agencies to prepare for longer journeys in space – including future missions to Mars.…

Just chillin’ A raccoon in Jackson, Ohio, in the US. Taken by Jill Neff. Breaking the rules A kingfisher in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Taken by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Smiley A parrotfish in the Canary Islands, by Arthur Telle Thiemann. Lost in thought A mountain gorilla in Uganda, east Africa, by Marcus Westberg. We all have that friend Brown bears in Russia, taken by Yarin Klein. Family fun Langurs in Kabini, India. Taken by Thomas Vijayan.…

On 27 September, the Reading is Magic Festival will offer six days of free digital events. There’ll be an all-star line up of authors and illustrators, including Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell. In fact, the festival is inspired by Cowell’s “reading is magic, and magic is for everyone” message. Look out for exciting new material each day, that’s specially designed to encourage a love for books and reading, on the festival website: readingismagicfestival.com…

Alice Guy-Blaché Alice Guy-Blaché is one of the most important pioneers in cinema. Born in France in 1873, she formed her own company and went on to write, produce or direct around 1,000 films. She is credited with making the first films with stories. The Lumière brothers In the 1890s, French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière invented a camera that could record, develop and project film. This changed the course of cinema on the big screen. Charlie Chaplin The son of entertainers, Charlie Chaplin was born in London in 1889. He went on to become one of the most famous actors and filmmakers in the world. He started out in silent films (films with no recorded speaking in them) and worked until the 1960s.…

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Streaming now on Netflix Taking place alongside the events of the 2015 film Jurassic World, this animated series follows six teenagers attending a summer camp at the dinosaur theme park. When the dinosaurs break out of their enclosures, these campers have to band together in order to survive. Enola Holmes From 23 September on Netflix Meet Sherlock Holmes’ younger sister in this brand-new film. Millie Bobby Brown plays the junior detective, who sets out to solve the mystery of what’s happened to her missing mother, who disappears on Enola’s 16th birthday. Henry Cavill and Sam Claflin play her older brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. London Zoo: An Extraordinary Year 9pm on 24 September, ITV Earlier this year, zoos across the UK were forced to close their doors…

You’d think Mario’s knees would be getting tired by now: the famous character has been platform-jumping since 1981, when he appeared in the Donkey Kong arcade game. And 2020 is a very special year for the bouncing plumber – it’s the 35th anniversary of the original 1985 Super Mario Bros game. It was a 2D platform game that saw Mario save the Mushroom Kingdom. It launched on the Nintendo Family Computer in Japan – which was called the Nintendo Entertainment System in other parts of the world. The game was a huge hit. Its creator was Shigeru Miyamoto, and he has been the brains behind Mario ever since, also developing the first 3D Mario game in the 1990s. As part of the 35th anniversary, Nintendo is releasing some new Mario…

What should I ask questions about? Do the relatives and older people you speak to remember when the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon in 1969? Perhaps you can ask about the excitement of entering the new millennium at the end of 1999? Any interviewing tips? When talking to people about the history they have lived through, try to ask interesting questions, and listen carefully to their answers. Write notes and questions down before you chat so that you will remember what to say. What history am I living through right now? As well as the coronavirus outbreak, you are also living through a time when the UK is leaving the European Union – a process that is called Brexit. There are also big environmental protests…

“I am a passionate reader and I could not spend a day without a book by my side! I wanted to share my love for books with children all over the world, so I started a blog last year. Suitable for seven to 12-year-old children, my blog intends to inspire children across the world to read. I write reviews about books I have read myself and think other children may enjoy reading too. There are book reviews of all genres on my blog. In August 2020, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my blog. I have written over 75 book reviews on my blog during this period. I get lots of motivating comments and messages from authors and parents to thank me for my work and to tell me how…

Magician travels by balloon A magician called David Blaine flew for 4.7 miles above the Arizona desert, in the US, by holding on to 50 helium balloons. Blaine performed the stunt, which he called “Ascension”, on 2 September. He was inspired by a French film he saw as a child called The Red Balloon. In it, a young boy flies over the city of Paris holding on to lots of balloons. Blaine spent an hour up in the air, before skydiving and then parachuting down to the ground. Upon landing he told his nine-year-old daughter, “This was all for you”. Goat gets in police car A sheriff from Douglas County in Colorado, US, was surprised to find a goat sitting in the front seat of her police car. The sheriff…