Stories and poems

‘Celebr8' is a poem about inclusion and diversity. It is by the Liverpool based poet Levi Tafari, himself of Jamaican origin.

Ron Butlin's little tale is a dark little piece, in spite of the title. It's very much a story of loss of dreams and the erosion of natural wonder.

Louise Cooper’s stories usually have a twist in the tale, and this is no different. It starts off ordinarily enough with a king, a crying princess and a poor suitor for the princess’s hand. So, what happens to cheer the princess up? Probably not what you think.

'Ullswater' is based on the short story by Romesh Gunesekera. It is about the relationship between two very different brothers and how various factors have caused them to grow apart.

'Lucky' is a kit based on the short story by Jane Rogers, and is the first in a series of BritLit projects in collaboration with Comma Press. Unlike previous kits, 'Lucky' uses the spoken rather than the written word as its primary source, and the story is read by the author on an mp3 audio file.

Based on the works of Jackie Kay and Ron Butlin this kit looks at the Scottish city of Edinburgh. It differs from original BritLit kits in that there is no single narrative text to work through.

This kit is based on a story by Paul Jennings, the third of his stories subjected to the BritLit treatment. Like most of Jennings' tales it centres on a hapless school student who, in this case, tries to find an ingenious way to shake off the bully who has been tormenting him and, at the same time, keep his girlfriend.

'Emergency Landing' is a very short story by Louise Cooper, from her collection of very short stories called 'Short and Scary'. This kit is the third in the series for young teens. Engine problems during a flight cause the crew to look for somewhere safe to land and for passengers to wonder about what might happen when they make an emergency landing. But nothing is quite as it seems.

For the first time, materials for the BritLit project have been produced outside of Portugal, where the project began. Teachers working on BritLit in Hungary have been busily devising a new approach, and they have chosen to focus on four British cities, examining them through the eyes of their native poets. The first of these looks at the city of Liverpool and uses the words of Levi Tafari.