Activity Page: The Creative Power of Books

Welcome to our activity page inspired by THE CREATIVE POWER OF BOOKS in the UoA Collections. There are fun activities to do from home and we hope you will be able to visit us again soon.

Here are the winning entries in our Flash Fiction Competition.

We hope you enjoy reading them!

Thank you to EVERYONE who entered - we thoroughly enjoyed reading your stories, we hope you enjoyed creating them. Don't stop now. Write more!

Comment from our Head Judge, Alex McCall:

"It was really hard to pick only three winners for each category. All the entries blew me away with their creativity but the ones we picked each had a unique voice that resonated with us. From political commentary to beautiful descriptions, it was amazing to see just what could be done with only 100 words."

Adults

Winner: Lynn Myint-Maung “Amuse Bouche” Lynn Myint-Maung .pdf

Runner Up: Claire Traill “First party” Claire Traill .pdf

Runner Up: Trudy Duffy – Wigman “Chemistry” Trudy Duffy - Wigman.pdf

Young Adults

Winner: Clueless” Neve Smollet .pdf

Runner Up: Euan Shannon “Victory Ball” Euan Shannon.pdf

Runner Up: Luke Humphries “Palace Party” Luke Humphries’ .pdf

Children

Runner Up: Klaudia Hagyariova “Death Day Party” Klaudia Hagyariova.pdf

Runner Up: Eilidh Shannon “Blobfish Birthday” Eilidh Shannon.pdf

Any views or opinions represented in these stories are personal and pertain solely to the author.

Head Judge ALEX McCALL

2021 FLASH FICTION COMPETITION

Write a micro story in 100 words about 'An Unusual Party'. Entry details below.

CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO SUNDAY 27TH FEBRUARY, 2022

Flash Fiction Competition entries 2020

Open the PDFs below to read the stories created by all the award winners as well as a selection of other entries to last year's Flash Fiction competition.

A Book-A-Day from the UoA Special Collections

For Book Week Scotland 2021, we thought we'd share a book for each day of the festival.

FORE-EDGE PAINTING

Did you know that some books have artworks painted onto the fore-edge block that can only be seen when the edges of the book are slightly fanned out? The painting is hidden when the book is closed.

WHAT A WASTE

Remember covering your school textbooks with scraps of wrapping paper? Well, here are some 16th Century versions. These belonged to Scottish mathematician and physician, Duncan Liddel (1561 - 1613).

JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

Get down to a second-hand bookshop if you want to own a well-designed piece of art! In the 19th century, publishers realised the look of their publications was important. Here’s one of our favourites!

AUDUBON - A BIG BOOK OF BIRDS

Aberdeen University owns the second volume of the four-volume set of The Birds of America, considered to be the greatest work ever produced on North American ornithology. It’s BIG!

PARTS OF A BOOK

The term ‘furniture’ is used to describe the clasps and bosses that adorn many early books. Their function is to strengthen the binding and protect the cover. This book belonged to Bishop Elphinstone.

MAKE YOUR OWN HERBARIUM

Have a go at creating an Herbarium! OK, so you've got a long way to go to match the 120,000 specimens of the University's Herbarium but it's great fun and you can get creative.

THIS IS THE END

The function of the endpapers were to protect the text from the boards and to counteract the pull of the cover on the boards.

Do you know Endpapers from your Gauffered Edges? Here's an A-Z of book parts!

Parts of a Book QUIZ

ANSWERS

Journals in the UoA Collections

Journal of Dr Jonathan Troup:1788-1790, MS 2070

Jonathan Troup (c1764 - 1799), physician, of Aberdeen, Scotland and Dominica, West Indies.

'Travels in Turkey' travel diary by an unknown author, MS 125

'Travels in Turkey', including accounts of voyages and details of people. Manuscript, with notes, 1773. The work is translated from Dutch.

Andrew Melville: Commonplace Book, MS 28

Commonplace book, including some music, recipes, lunar tables for Aberdeen, birth records (one of which includes Edward Raban d 1658, the printer, as godfather), proverbs, etc., 1621 - 1640.

James Fraser of Phopachy, clergyman: Triennial Travels, MS 2538

"A succinct and breefe narration of the journay and voyage of Master James Fraser through Scotland, England, all France, part of Spain, and over the Savoyan Alps to Italy, 1 June 1657 - April 1660."

Sir Alexander Ogston, personal and family papers, MS 3850

Ogston recorded his experiences in Serbia and Italy in two journals, including numerous sketches, plans, photographs and correspondence. These journals formed the basis of his book Reminiscences, 1919