Bulahdelah Central School student, Bao Tran won the Excellence Award for his illustration in the Tell Me A Story competition.
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His drawing was an interpretation of fellow year six student Nathaniel Reitsma's story 'The Rising of the Giant'.
Tell Me a Story is a competition for school-aged children so they can discover their talents, and find adventure and joy in writing and illustrating.
It is organised by the Great Lakes Advocate newspaper and personal guidance is provided to students in a form of a feedback to their entries, so they can refine their skills. Cash prizes make this competition exciting and appealing to students.
Introducing story illustration to young people gives artistically inclined students the opportunity to participate in this competition, and to enhance a written story with an appealing graphical presentation.
Congratulations to all the Bulahdelah Central School students who entered the Tell Me a Story Writing and Illustration competitions.
Results:
Illustration competition
Merit award: Ezra Hammerl, year six, "Between"; Isabella Sumner, year six, "Depths"; Mathew Thompson, year six, "Shark Attack".
Highly commended: Blake Matheson, year six, "Shark Attack".
Excellent award: Bao Tran, year six, "The Rising of the Giant".
Writing competition
Highly commended: Nathaniel Reitsma, year six, "The Rising of the Giant".
The Rising of the Giant
By Nathaniel Reitsma, year six, Bulahdelah Central School
In the shade of the large pine trees, in front of an old run down, white stone palace with pale blue roof tiles, two young boys, both with dark hair, ran round and round playing tag on a small hill. When came a rumble so loud it made the earth shake, the small hill began to rise, the fresh green grass began to tear, and a colossal stone giant rose from the ground. The boys ran in fear.
They ran as fast as they had ever ran before, it was a long way back to the palace and the boys were needing a rest, driven by pure terror, they ran. When they made it into the castle, they flopped on a nearby bed panting. The boys were safe, but now the city was in danger.
The queen saw the boys and asked what had happened. When they had told her everything, she looked out from the window and saw the stone giant. She ordered the general to get all of his soldiers and fire at the beast.
In a few minutes all of the men were out fighting while nearby residents evacuated. The giant was moving slower with the guns firing, but he still moved on, the colossal beast grew nearer to the city. It was getting out of control. Tanks were soon called to help, joined by police and air force.
The stone beast wasn't far from the city now, and they had lost too many men to this giant. It was so big it picked up a tank and threw it as if it was a pebble skimming along the water.
As the tank bounced across the road taking out most of their men, they had slowed the giant down but it was still moving, and they had lost more than half of the men fighting.
The general, the queen and the mayor of the city got together and made a plan to stop the colossal stone beast and save the city without losing any more men, the mayor got some cranes, the general ordered a fighter jet to stand by for take-off, and the queen wanted to setup a victory party, but was told not to as it might not work.
The men holding off the giant retreated and tanks shot at it trying to lead it to the cranes. The tanks moved this way and that acting like sheep dogs leading cows into a pen. When the giant came near the cranes the jet tore off down the runway, its rumbling engines humming as the plane flew over the city. As the giant was next to the cranes, one of the cranes cranked into action and swung a wrecking ball at the giant's head causing it to fall with a thud. The plane went into a steep nose dive and launched all missiles at the giant a thick black smoke began to rise from where the giant was. Was it a hit? Did it miss?
A hit, but in the arm. The giant rose from the smoke and let out a roar of fury, the giant's arm fell off his shoulder and shattered onto the road below. Everyone looked at the giant rising up from the smoke, it had a feeling of hatred radiating all around him, its stone eyes somehow glaring at the others below. The giant lifted his arm and got ready to take down a nearby building, the pilot in the plane saw what the giant was doing and flew at full speed at the giant's head the giant raised his arm to protect his face but was too late, the plane hit the giant in the nose and the plane blew up in the giant's face and the giant fell into the smoke and shattered into pieces of gravel.
But the danger was not over as the bullet size pebbles fell from such a height making a stone shower. The giant was destroyed but was still taking lives. The men below ran around frantically looking for a safe place to hide. They ran under tanks and into garages.
The giant was remembered and a statue was made, and it was known as the stone massacre. There was a plaque made for the pilot and those who gave their lives to stop the giant. There was still confusion about where it came from and if there would be more. But the boys were not really bothered by it. They still played on the hill that the giant had once rose from, so people tried to put it behind them and not worry about it.