As a part of Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, we were fortunate to have author and translator Denys Johnson-Davies share some information about his life and work with our Grade 2 and 3 students this week. Magrudy's provided some fascinating biographical information about Mr. Johnson-Davies:
"Denys Johnson-Davies was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1922 and spent the first twelve years of his life in Cairo, Wadi Halfa, Kampala and Kenya. He studied Arabic and Farsi at the University of Cambridge before taking up positions in the BBC Arabic Service and at Cairo University. His first work was a self-financed book of Arabic Stories in translation; he has since gone on to translate over 30 novels, short story collections, plays and poetry collections. As a writer, he has published more than fifty children’s books, mostly adapted classical Arabic stories and many published by Dubai-based Jerboa Books. He also has a forthcoming collection of short stories from the UAE entitled In a Fertile Desert.
Denys Johnson-Davies has been described by the late Edward Said as “the leading Arabic-English translator of our time”, while the British Council say his “role in the history of cultural relations between Arab countries and the rest of the world is unique and unlikely ever to be repeated”. In 2007 he was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Prize as Personality of the Year for his services to Arabic literature."
The students enjoyed Mr. Johnson-Davies and are excited to read his books of which we have more than twenty in the elementary library.
Over several classes, we read the chapter book Mrs. Roopy is Loopy, part of the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman. Ever since, we cannot keep the series on the shelf! Grade 2 students are eating up the books and visiting every day to see if any new books have been returned! The students love the fact that each book features a different unusual teacher. Mrs. Roopy, for example, is a zany librarian who dresses up as a different character every time the children come to the library. Dan Gutman is a popular author for children. His baseball card adventure series is well read as are two of his newer titles The Get Rich Quick Club and The Homework Machine. For more information about Dan Gutman and his books visit:
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