The ‘What’s The Story?’ Challenge

An Post is the State-owned provider of postal services in Ireland. The An Post Education Awards have been running now for 20 years. The theme of this year’s An Post Education Awards is storytelling. They've teamed up with four of Ireland’s most popular children’s authors - Brianóg Brady Dawson, Judi Curtin, Conor Kostick and Oisín McGann - to create story starters, in different genres, for every age.

Here is the starter for Junior Infants – First Class, written by Conor Kostick

Detective

Inis Beag was a mysterious island at the best of times. Thousands of years ago,people had put tall stones there, bringing them across dangerous seas to make a pattern whose meaning had been long forgotten. There had only ever been one house on the island and when someone started living in it again Inis Beag became even more mysterious. Who was it, in the house? Why did they never come over to the mainland? And why were there sometimes strange flashes in the sky at night over the island? Nora and her brother James would often go to the cliffs and take turns with a pair of binoculars. They wanted to be the first to solve the mystery. And so they were.

Here is the starter for Second - Fourth Class and Fifth - Sixth Class, written by Conor Kostick

Detective

The most exciting, challenging, not to say downright dangerous case I ever solved was that which I call ‘The Mystery of the Missing Head.’ The head concerned was not a real one; it was a plaster bust. For decades it had stood on a shelf in the elegant country home of the von Meckleburg family. When this bust went missing, Amelia von Meckleburg herself rang to ask for my services. She flattered me, calling me the best detective in the country and so I took the case. I found the head, of course. But I also found a sorry tale of greed and betrayal.