On April 8, the critters, crazy aunts, and peaches invaded Archer’s courtyard to celebrate the beginning of One Book. Senior classes at Archer plan this event, taking place every other year. 

One Book engages the community with a text that is accessible for all students to read. This year’s book was Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach.”

On Tuesday, the class of 2014 surprised the school during advisory by dressing up as book characters. These costumes ranged from Critters to Cloud men and the Aunts to James himself.

The courtyard was adorned with peach themed decorations, including the inflatable Giant Peach made by the seniors. Cloud men threw ice at the student body and an Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker harassed the community just as their characters harangued James in the book.  Of course this wouldn’t be an Archer event without food, so the seniors provided peach gummies.

During the courtyard celebration, the entire school received copies of  “James and The Giant Peach.” Once everyone had a book, seniors took the stage and performed scenes from the book, like the iconic moment when James enters the peach. Marisa London ’14, portraying main character James, surprised the crowd by entering a secret door in the inflated peach.

The rest of the week was dedicated to celebrating the book. Wednesday morning, seniors read aloud in the front hallway as students entered the building. On Thursday, a non-stop marathon reading of the entire book took place in the library, which began at the beginning of the day. Readers sat in the library’s big, green chair and passed the book to whoever wished to read next.

Throughout the week, the quiet room in the library was transformed into the “peach room.” The entire room was decorated with orange fabric and even had a blow up mattress to evoke the center of James’ peach.

As the celebratory culmination to One Book’s festivities on Friday, the entire school dressed up as their favorite characters.

To see a gallery of photos from Archer Communications, follow this link.