Welcome back ...2008

Hiya everyone - welcome back to another year our great library!!!

Mrs Kraushaar has a heap of great books to add to our collection and I'll be reviewing them here over the course of the term.

If you use the internet a lot a great way to keep up to date with this blog is to subscribe to this page using a feedburner. Come and talk to me if you are unsure of what I mean.

How about letting me know about any of the great books you may have read over the holidays......

Final Competition for the year...Xmas time..

Just tell me in less than 75 words, the book you'd most like to get for Xmas and why.

Post your entries here....just click on the comment line - remember to tell me your name...

Watch this space.

Operation Red Jericho & Operation Typhoon Shore - by Joshua Mowll

If you are into action, adventure and a little bit of history you will LOVE these books by Joshua Mowll. There are part of a series of three, the third one is not yet in our library. They follow on so you do need to read them in order.

The main action takes place in the 1920's in China and Asia. As well as text the pages are filled with diagrams, photocopies of authentic tickets and other bits of memorabilia.

They are not easy reading so you would need to be a fairly confident reader to tackle them.

The Key to Rondo - Emily Rodda

A music box, a mysterious family history, a set of precise instructions.....and a doorway to another world - created by Emily Rodda.

Rodda's detailed descriptions and wonderful characterisation will ensure that this will be a very popular new book in the library!

Check out Emily Rodda's website here - http://www.emilyrodda.com/index.html

Monsters of Blood and Honour - Ken Catran

After hearing Ken Catran in our own library last term, I was pretty keen to read his latest book. It's not a book I'd recommend to junior readers as it has some harrowing accounts of World War 2. The novel is in fact three short novels in one collection. The first tale deals with British fighter pilots who lead the bombing raids that wiped out German cities at the end of WW2. The second deals with the memories of a nurse who was held in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Singapore. The last tale is the story of a Nazi prison guard who managed to escape to NZ but who lives with the ghosts of his past.
Each story has a teenage character who acts as the starting point for the narrative.

Ken spoke to us about how he researches his work and the details in these stories are based on the factual accounts of survivors- the realism is startling at times.

National Library Week - October 15th

This week is National Library Week - we will be running a competition based on this blog. Read one of the books that I have reviewed either on this blog or the school newsletter, post your thoughts about the book here and be in to win a great prize.


PRIZEWINNER - Samuel Hansard - see Mrs Cleary for your prize!!

For more info check out this link - http://www.libraryweek.org.nz/index.php

Duet - David Hill

As an ex-teacher David Hill knows how to create believable teenage characters, Kallum and Paige, the main characters of Duet are certainly believable as a pair of teens who have a strong attraction to each other. Music is the link that brings them and it forms a strong rhythm in the novel. Hill has always tackled real issues sensitively and teenage pregnancy is certainly a real issue.

A book for more senior readers.