Faber and the National Literacy Trust have launched a competition for schools to celebrate seventy years of Lord of the Flies, and its publication as a graphic novel for the first time. The deadline is 15 November 2024.
Contents:
About the Book
Before The Stand and The Hunger Games, before Battle Royale and Yellowjackets, there was Lord of the Flies.
A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors, a group of schoolboys. By day, they explore the dazzling beaches. By night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast and of what they’ve lost.
‘There aren’t any grown-ups anywhere.’
Orphaned by society, they must forge their own; but it isn’t long before the group is split, and their innocent games take a dangerous turn.
‘What are we? Humans? Or Animals?’
For the first time, from acclaimed artist Aimée de Jongh, comes the stunning graphic novel adaptation of this classic story, one of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels that shaped our World’.
‘The first book that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat.’ Stephen King
‘One of my favourite books.’ Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games
About the Competition
What would it be like if you were on the island?
We’re challenging pupils across the UK to create their own diary entry from the island, imagining themselves in the shoes of one of the boys or as if they have landed there with them. It could be your first day there, after the crash, alone and lost on beautiful, empty beaches. Or it could be day seven, when you’ve explored your surroundings and rescue is looking less and less likely – what does your camp look like? And how are things with the other islanders?
The winning entry has the chance to win:
- Copies of the Lord of the Flies graphic novel for the winner and their class
- Signed prints from Aimée de Jongh from the graphic novel for the winner and their class
- A book token worth £50
- A selection of twenty YA Faber books for the school library
We invite pupils to be as imaginative as possible, therefore entries can be made in any of the below forms:
- Writing: using the traditional diary entry method
- Drawing: creating a comic strip or graphic novel
- Sound: creating a recorded entry, using voice, music and/or other sounds
- Film: recording an entry of yourself as if streaming live from the island
Some ideas and prompts:
Record your entry as a Tiktok as if you are in the style of the I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here confession room
Use your phone, a laptop or other recording device and play sounds from the jungle on YouTube to provide a backing track for your audio entry
You could also record an entry from the island inspired by the BBC’s Desert Island Discs – a format where actors, scientists, musicians, celebs and inspiring people are interviewed about their favourite songs that remind them of their life off the island. You could choose your favourite songs inspired by life on the island to help listeners get a feel for island life.
In your classroom, set up a ‘recording studio’ and ask your friends quick-fire questions in the diary chair and record their answers. It could be things like:
- What are you eating?
- Where are you sleeping?
- What do you miss most?
- What do you miss least?
- Who is your closest friend?
- What luxury item do you wish you had with you?
Extract
Extract taken from Lord of the Flies as the boys on the island hold a meeting:
‘We’re on an island. We’ve been on the mountain-top and seen water all round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We’re on an uninhabited island with no other people on it.’
Jack broke in.
‘All the same you need an army – for hunting. Hunting pigs –’
‘Yes. There are pigs on the island.’
All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing struggling in the creepers.
‘We saw –’
‘Squealing –’
‘It broke away –’
‘Before I could kill it – but – next time!’
Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly.
The meeting settled down again.
‘So you see,’ said Ralph, ‘we need hunters to get us meat. And another thing.’
He lifted the shell on his knees and looked round the sunslashed faces.
‘There aren’t any grown-ups. We shall have to look after ourselves.’
Illustration by Aimée de Jongh for Lord of the Flies: The Graphic Novel.
Video
Find out more about how you could develop your idea, with this example entry.
How to Enter
You can submit your entry using this link.
If you have any issues or need to transfer a larger file, please get in touch with connecting.stories@
The judging panel will be announced in due course.
The deadline for submission is: Friday 15 November 2024.
Terms and Conditions:
- If you are sharing a video file of a pupil or young person, they must have parental consent to share the video and enter the competition. By entering the competition, you are confirming that consent has been granted.
- Please only share the young person’s first name and a contact email address of a responsible adult or teacher.
- This competition is not open to employees or contractors of Faber, their immediate families, nor to any other person connected with the Competition.
- This competition is only open to UK residents aged 12 to 16 years.
- All entries will be reviewed by the National Literacy Trust and anonymised prior to being shared with the judging panel.
- Entries will be judged on the merit of their creativity in response to the book. We will not penalise entries with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or otherwise – we’re keen to celebrate responses for their ideas!
- The decision of the judging panel is final. We will contact the winning entry prior to public announcement.
- Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted.
- The prize is non-transferable and cannot be exchanged for its monetary value or other products or events. Faber reserves the right to amend the specification of the prize or offer an alternative prize of equivalent status without any prior warning. No cash alternative will be offered.
- Faber reserves the right to update or amend these terms and conditions from time to time.
- Faber will only process entrants’ data for the purposes of entering entrants into and administering the Competition, and not for any other purpose without the entrants’ consent. This will not affect any existing marketing preferences an entrant may have with us. For further information on how Faber processes data please read our Privacy Policy.
William Golding is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential writers of modern times. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, has been read by millions, translated into more than forty-five languages, and adapted for screen and stage drama. He drew on his own experience as a teacher and his service in the Second World War, where – as he says – he saw ‘what one man could do to another’.
Read More
Aimée de Jongh is a renowned graphic novelist. Her debut The Return of the Honey Buzzard won the Prix Saint-Michel and was adapted to a live-action film whilst her graphic novel Days of Sand was an international bestseller, and nominated for two Eisner awards. She has been published in eleven languages to date.
The world’s first graphic novel of Lord of the Flies — a masterpiece reimagined.