We want to help create motivated and engaged young readers. This blog is about children's and YA literature (especially New Zealand), literacy research, and ways to get, and keep, kids reading.
Are you looking for a new display idea for your library or classroom? Our centre, at National Library Palmerston North, has become very colourful thanks to our Display Librarian Lynn, who not only developed this super "blue" themed display, but also a competition of "blue" related questions. You may download the competition questions (and answers) and tips for teachers here
Are you looking for a new display idea for your library or classroom? Our centre, at National Library Palmerston North, has become very colourful thanks to our Display Librarian Lynn, who not only developed this super "blue" themed display, but also a competition of "blue" related questions. You may download the competition questions (and answers) and tips for teachers here
Many children are scared of the dark, and the strange noises they hear in the night. My daughter recently told me earnestly that it is great that we have done a big clean-up of her room, because now all the little monsters have gone, “but the big ones are still there.”
Melanie Drewery's new picture book The Grumble Rumble Mumbler, illustrated by Loudmouth Productions, is for all those children who lie awake in the scary dark. It features a little girl who can’t sleep, because of all the noises she hears. Her monsters aren't European or American ones, but traditional Aotearoa creatures: a lovingly drawn Maero, Taipoo, Taniwha, and Ngaarara. She keeps running to her patient, but increasingly tired mama, who shows her that the scary noises relate to everyday household things. Or do they?
Now, I know that flap-books can be the bane of school librarians' lives, but these flaps are solid and strongly built, and an important part of the book. They show the friendly-looking monsters of our girl's imagination, or perhaps the real creatures, hiding where an adult can’t find them.
With wonderful use of all the things that make a good picture book great, like repetition, onamatopaeia, and humour, The Grumble Rumble Mumbler acknowledges children’s fears, and deals with them in a gentle and reassuring way.
On Wednesday 17 October 2007, The Grumble Rumble Mumbler will be read at libraries all across New Zealand, as part of Library Week. Will your school library be joining in?
Fly, pigeon, fly! by John Henderson & Julia Donaldson; ill. Thomas Docherty. London: Little Tiger Press, 2006
This story of a boy's attachment to a baby bird he rescues from starvation (later even teaching it to fly!) is a delight. First-time author Henderson has joined forces with established writer Julia Donaldson in recording this incident from his own childhood in working class Glasgow. Don't be put off by the inexplicably dull monochromatic cover—Thomas Docherty's illustrations inside the book are quite beautiful.
Wind-wild dog by Barbara Joosse, ill. Kate Kiesler. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006
'The night Ziva was born, the wind held its breath' . Ziva, a huskie pup has been born with one eye brown, the other blue, and no one wants her because this supposedly means she is half-wild, impossible to train as a sled dog. Ziva's prospects look bleaker than the weather in her remote Alaskan home, but luckily her path is crossed by a man who also has a wild streak….
Both books could be seen as illustrations of the rather cliched saying 'If you love something, set it free', but they deal with their contrasting subjects in a fresh, original way that is moving without being sentimental. Both are good read-alouds that should appeal to boys in the middle-senior primary school range.
Reviewed by Cecily
Posted
… some more of Bob's book reviews:
Best Mate by Michael Morpurgo
Being by Kevin Brooks
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Featured
…the International Children's Digital Library, and noted that you can preview NZ books on the site on this page of the National Library website
Introduced
… BookBackChat, a (moderated) email discussion of selected books for students, a great tool for getting reluctant readers engaged.
And you?
We'd love to hear what topics you'd be interested in - leave a note for us in the comments!
{Alternative title is Born to Run}
Subtitled "The many lives of one incredible dog" that is exactly what it is. Written for middle school children in the same flowing style that characterises Michael Morpurgo's books. Best Mate is rescued as a pup from a bag full of puppies that has been thrown in a canal. He grows up with his saviour, Patrick, and is then dognapped by the cruel and unscrupulous Craig who races dogs.
A change of name and a successful career is followed by a flight from home with a young girl. Life on the road and another change of name puts him in a life of protest with an old man fighting for the survival of an old people's rest home. All through the story the dog is true and faithful to his owners and this makes the ending sad and heartwarming at the same time.
You don't get better writing than this for children. Read it!!
Published by HarperCollins Children's
Reviewed by Bob
Book BackChat, part of English Online is a site where students can participate in a moderated email discussion of selected books with students from around the country. There are 5 book backchat groups coming up this term, for students from years 1-10.
The books for this term are:
Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck!, By Kyle Mewburn - Yr 1-2, starts 23 October
Snake and Lizard, By Joy Cowley, illustrated by Gavin Bishop - Yr 3-4, starts 23 October
Best Mate By Michael Morpurgo - Yr 5-6 - starts 5 November
(see review above)
The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean - Yr 7-8, starts 5 November
Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman - Yr 9-10, starts 5 November
Reluctant Readers and ICT
Using ICT and books combined can be a great way of getting reluctant readers interested in books. Posting answers to the co-ordinator's questions, and getting involved in email discussions between different schools can also help to develop students' writing skills – and its fun!
To find out more, visit BookBackchat
Get onto that plane now to visit what must be an amazing day in The Mall, Washington D.C. The Library of Congress has been organising the National Book Festival in Washington since 2001. I guess it helps having a librarian as First Lady.
Kevin Brooks is the mailman of young adult literature, he always delivers, well nearly always.
Being is a book written at breakneck speed about a teenager who is admitted to hospital for an endoscopy. He awakes in the middle of the surgeons cutting into him to overhear a conversation relating to his condition which suggests that he is not human but some sort of human robot. He escapes after a bloody and vicious fight with those conducting the operation and links up with a tough and streetwise 18 year old girl who is in the know with the criminal element.
After being chased all around England they escape to the Continent and that should have been that. But it is not. The ending will have many perplexed and some will say the mailman has not delivered this time. Superbly written with high tension and action. Reminds me of the film Bladerunner. Aimed at Secondary level.
Pub. Penguin London
Reviewed by Bob
A fabulous story of an orphan, Hugo, living in a Paris railway station at the turn of last century winding up the clocks and foraging for a living in what ever way he can. His secret life is threatened when he is caught shoplifting by an old man and meets his young niece. A broken mechanical man left to him by his father holds the key to the mystery of this story.
Nearly 300 pages of this book are told in original black and white drawings that resemble a cinematic storyboard and in these lies another mystery of this book. Wide appeal from middle school through to secondary. Of particular interest to those studying early film makers.
Pub.Scholastic Press.
Reviewed by Bob
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