Two schools in Devonshire forged a tighter bond by sharing the gift of reading yesterday.

Somersfield Academy donated a book token to the nearby Elliot Primary School library after it held its annual Read-a-Thon from November 2 to 20.

The Devonshire school used some of the proceeds from its book fair to fund the gift.

Youngsters at Elliot, on the parish’s Hermitage Road, also picked up a selection of favourite children’s titles, from Nancy Drew to Captain Underpants, donated by one of the Somersfield families.

Kimberly Creighton, the Elliot principal, said the two schools were “building a relationship as neighbourhood schools”.

Bernadette Tucker, the Somersfield librarian, said: “We’re hoping to do this again, an annual giving, just sharing in the neighbourhood.”

Somersfield pupils from diploma year two, Ari Harrison, 16, with 17-year-olds Frankie Arnold and Tyler DeCouto, also organised a reading last month for children at Warwick Preschool on Zoom because of Covid-19 precautions.

Ari said they had at first planned to read to the elderly before they decided on preschoolers.

The event was organised with Noreen Bartley, the preschool’s headteacher.

The group chose the Dr Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, in line with the Read-a-Thon theme of “Reading is a blast”.

Ari said: “The connotation is that reading is a journey, a way to travel to different lands. Also, we’ve all been cooped up. We were just on lockdown, so we wanted to allow their imaginations to run wild.”

Frankie, who read the book, said he wanted to share the experience of being read to that he had enjoyed as a young child.

Tyler said the event was part of the “creativity, action and service” component of Somersfield’s international baccalaureate programme.

He added: “Cadence is important with writing like Dr Seuss, which is almost poetic.

“It really added to the experience – the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.”