Twizzlers and splunkers win prizes in silly sentence competition at Grove Library

It's not something all of us would admit to, but this silly sentence won six-year-old Mikey Bailey a prize at his local library.

The primary schooler cooked up his wonderful word jumble for a Roald Dahl-inspired silly sentence competition at Grove Library.

The other prize-winner, ten-year-old Tom Leech, won over judges with his quizzical question: "Would you name a zingfizzabulous pig phonedoodles?" (answers on a postcard).

For their prizes, Tom and Mikey were both presented with copies of the newly-published Roald Dahl Dictionary, replete with silly sentences guaranteed to give the giggles.

Library manager Kathryn Leech said: "It’s been great to see the children playing with words and being so creative in the library.

"The prizegiving was well attended and had a lovely atmosphere."

A total of 27 children entered the competition over the summer holidays, many of whom attended the prize-giving ceremony on Friday.

Every child was encouraged to create their own silly sentence for display in the library using a set of Roald Dahl "whipple-scrumptious words" magnets and a desktop easel provided by the Friends of Grove Library.

Mrs Leech added: "The good thing is that the equipment donated by the friends will continue to be used by children in the library when we have class visits or in the Saturday morning Chatterbooks book club meetings."

In the spirit of encouraging all youngsters to read, The Friends of Grove Library decided to award every child who participated a Roald Dahl book as a prize, continuing the "Big Friendly Read" theme of Oxfordshire's Summer Reading Challenge.

The judging was done blind by the friends' chairman Brian Webster and another member of the group on Thursday, September 1.

Mr Webster announced the winners and gave prizes to the 16 children who attended on Friday.

The children who were unable to attend will be able to collect their book from the library when they next visit.