And the Winners are…

First Prize: Elvina Sadigov and Erin Johnston, 4.2

Second Prize: Alice Shalnoff, 5.2

LISTEN TO THEIR STORIES

Here, you can listen to Elvina and Erin reading their great story/speech.

Obnoxious Alexa

by Erin Johnston (class 4.2)

Elvina for President

by Elvina Sadigov (class 4.2)

It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the 2022 QBGS Writing Competition. Congratulations to Elvina Sadigov, Erin Johnston and Alice Shalnoff for their captivating entries.

This year’s competition was on the theme of ‘I Have a Dream’ and I loved the variety of styles and interpretations that were sent. Thank you to everyone who entered.

I am delighted to say that two of our winners are members of the QBGS Writing Club who have become accomplished storytellers over the past year and whose writing shows great promise.

You may read an extract of the winning pieces here on our website. The entire story will be published in the next edition of the Young Writers’ Magazine. Those in first place also recorded their writing and we have included these recordings alongside their written pieces. Follow the links below to have a read and listen. We would love to hear your feedback!

Eva Wagner

THEIR STORIES:

Obnoxious Alexa

Hello, my name is Erin Johnston, from class 4.2, and I have been named the joint-winner of the 2022 QBGS Writing Competition. Here is my story:

I remember the day when Alexa created mayhem in our house. It was a Tuesday morning and the doorbell didn’t stop ringing. This is the ironic part, because I am usually the child that causes mischief, but I always know a way to get out of it. Oh, and my name is Chaos!!!! (Dramatic music) No just kidding, a little sense of humor for you. My name is actually Eric Thompson.

The problem is that our Alexa is a malfunctioning device. But the Thompsons, also known as my parents, don’t know that yet. When they plugged in Alexa, it did what all Alexas do, they turn on and wait for a human to give them a command. But this one didn’t. All of a sudden, it started ordering like a mad woman. And my parents didn’t know until about 50 delivery men showed up at our doorstep.

My mum had to return all the stuff we didn’t need or didn’t want and kept the things like food, clothes that did fit etc.. But since then, every single day more products have arrived. My parents decided to find out who or what was wasting their $money$. They had no idea that it was a mechanical error inside Alexa’s software system.

After a while it became so bad that they barely had enough $money$ to pay the rent. Without money for anything, other than maybe a cheap coffee, we were officially BROKE!

To be continued …..

I hope you enjoyed listening to my recording. You will be able to read my entire story find in the Young Writers’ Magazine which will be published next year.

Elvina for President

Hello, my name is Elvina Sadigov, from class 4.2, and I have been named the joint-winner of the 2022 QBGS Writing Competition. Here is my speech:

Welcome to my election campaign. My name is Elvina and I want to be your next president. Here is my manifesto for a better Germany.

Most importantly, as your future president I want peace! For a better Germany we do not need any suffering. We do not need a war between other countries. A happy life without fighting is much better. Everybody should respect each other. Everybody should be friendly, kind and compassionate. When I am your president, I will help you to be all these things. So, under my presidency there will be no more wars!

When I look at other nations, I think what a shame it is to start wars and destroy beautiful countries! And what a waste of money! What is the point of living in a country or a city and planning all these houses and buildings, if they all get destroyed later? No more wars, so we can design more buildings and make Germany even more attractive to live in. I hope you agree, because now I want to talk about building more houses and about jobs.

When I am president, I want to be fair and I want to provide affordable housing for everybody. And if someone wants a job, but he or she isn’t qualified enough, we will make sure they get training. For the ones who can’t get a job, because they are sick or anything else, we should all care for these people! But before you ask me how, all the people could put a little money together and give it to these people. And, everybody should get the amount of money they deserve! For example, a nurse helps people and for doing so they deserve more money. We also need more things to be built, like playgrounds. It has always been my dream to help homeless people. Helping people is being kind and that is what I all want you to be.

I hope you enjoyed listening to my recording. You will find my whole speech in the Young Writers’ Magazine which will be published next year.

A Planet of Freedom and Peace

By Alice Shalnoff, 5.2

In the world of Ukraine there was a girl who HATED war. No-one in their right mind would even dare to say the word ‘war’ in front of her. But then one day war came, and the girl was depressed.

“I have a dream,” said the girl, “I have a dream that we could escape to a planet with no war, no evil….. only peace!” Her dream was something which you could only dream of, but she hoped it would come true.

She went to school in a wrecked, damaged and broken world. “Why can’t it be like it was?” wailed the girl in despair. She walked so long it seemed like for centuries, and then finally she looked up to see a swirling blue portal.

“What could that be?” wondered the girl. Her parents taught her never to trust strange things, but today the rules were going to be different. “I hope that they don`t find out” said the girl, before jumping into the swirling blue depths. After she jumped into the portal, a wave of warm air hit her skin.

“How beautiful!” exclaimed the girl, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. But this place looks so familiar, why?” She was right, the place did look familiar, and it was very similar to……HER HOME!

She got it now. It was Ukraine before the war. And it looked…beautiful. “My dream came true,” said the girl, “I knew it would”. But that made her think, is it actually the Planet of Peace? “Mostly, it seems like a dream. W-what if it is a dream?” stammered the girl. And it was.

She woke up, still in a destroyed and wrecked world. “My dream did indeed not come true, but I have life, and that’s the most important thing.” The girl’s parents came into her room with a warm smile on their faces.

“There’s no war anymore, darling,” said the mother. The girl thought about her dream, and said, “I had a dream about peace, Mom”.

After the girl said her surprising sentence, all of a sudden, her parents happy faces changed to frowns, “What did you just say?” they asked in a creepy sort of way.

“I just,” stammered the girl, but they didn’t want to hear it. “You are grounded for a month young lady!” they shouted.