The national competition is part of the annual Write a Book in a Day competition, run by The Kids’ Cancer Project, and the books will be donated to children’s hospitals across the country for young cancer patients to enjoy. 

With the clock ticking, the 10 team members drawn from across the school’s four campuses had to brainstorm a storyline involving a compulsory set of parameters: two human characters, one non-human character, a setting and an issue.

The Woady Yaloak team’s story had to include a TV star and a billionaire, a dog, be set in a supermarket and tackle the issue that one good turn deserves another.

To add to the complexity each of the 282 teams, ranging from primary school pupils to secondary students and an open/corporate division, competing in the challenge had to include the same five random words in their book.

And the story must be identifiably Australian in its setting or theme, and be written for readers aged 10 to 16.

Teacher Jo Angel said the school was in the unique position to be able to draw a team from the school’s four campuses to share their talents.

“This is an event that inspires collaboration and community spirit while students have fun writing and illustrating a book,” Mrs Angel said.

Several of the grade five and six students in Woady Yaloak’s team had also taken part in the Ballarat Young Authors Program and were looking forward to putting some of the strategies they learned in those workshops to use for the 12-hour project.

The excited students met at the school’s Smythesdale campus at 8am for the long day of book production.

“This is a wonderful competition because it stimulates young minds while giving them the opportunity to help other young people,” said Kids Cancer Project founder Col Reynolds.