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.
When Avi publishes a book read it. He never fails to deliver, and he doesn't fail with this one.
When Avi publishes a book read it. He never fails to deliver, and he doesn't fail with this one.
Written for your sophisticated reader at intermediate and high school level, it is a story set in Dickensian London, indeed it could almost be the story of Charles Dicken's early life.
John Huffam's father is arrested for debt under mysterious circumstances and is imprisoned in a debtor's prison with his mother and sister. There are rumours that Mr Huffam was about to sell British Naval secrets concerning the discovery of "rifling" in guns which allows them to fire longer distances with greater accuracy. Young John gets involved in all the intrigue along with a street urchin, Sary the Sneak, and an array of sinister characters, just like a Dicken's novel.
Avi deliberately writes the story in a Dickensian way, save for the metaphors that characterised Dicken's writing. Nonetheless he portrays the City of London in the 1840's in such descriptive and realistic way with it's dinginess, it's squalor and it's fog, that the city becomes a character in the novel.
This novel is also a mystery which draws the reader in and Avi manages to extend the mystery right to the last page. You will not be disappointed.
Read it!
Reviewed by Bob
Published by Atheneum Books
In Wellington for the weekend ?
In Wellington for the weekend ? On Sunday 31 August 2008 you and the kids can discover some decidedly bookish events at Te Papa designed to kick off New Zealand Book Month. There’s a giant kid snake, badge making, and that old faithful - character dress-ups - all up on level one at The Void. Children's activities include:
10.30am Capital E National Theatre Group - Kiwi Moon puppet show
11.30am Gecko Press - Snake and Lizard - Storytellers Moira Wairama and Tony
Hopkins lead a giant kid snake around Te Papa.
12.30pm Lynley Dodd - fantasy dress-up competition - children to dress as
characters from The Dudgeon is Coming, The Other Ark and The Nickle-Nackle
Tree with book prizes.
1.30pm Fifi Colston - craft activities linked with Janie Olive and Verity's
Truth.
2.30pm Kate De Goldi and Jacqui Colley - Lolly Leopold reading and badge
making.
For more information about events visit www.nzbookmonth.co.nz
Flickr image by Velvet Android
The sequel to Salt and a good one at that. Gee continues the themes of "man's inhumanity to man" and "man's inability to learn from history" that he started in Salt but this time he polarises man's hatred in the form of a mother Gool, and her offspring, which threaten the world.
Hari and Pearl who were the heroes of Salt have had children, all of whom have inherited the gift of being able to talk in the mind and to influence behaviour in both humans and animals with this power. Xantee is the most influential in this book which is written sixteen years after Salt finished.
Hari is attacked by a small Gool which has latched onto his throat and is sucking his life away. Xantee and her siblings and other similarly gifted friends, set out to find Hari's father Tarl with the hope of destroying the mother gool so that the world can be restored to a better place. There is action aplenty in the forests, in the mountains and under the destroyed city of Belong.
Maurice Gee has written a satisfactory sequel to Salt and while much of the story is gloomy he does have a positive ending, but can man learn from this?
Will appeal to secondary students and young adults
Reviewed by Bob
Published by Puffin Books
by Judith Bryers Holloway
This book is a bit different!
It is a New Zealand book set in a fictional city, where big business and local council are trying to manipulate the lives of ordinary citizens. Some primary aged children, with the help of a seventh former, fight the council to allow a home for old dogs to remain on a piece of prime real estate.
The book has many short chapters (two to ten pages long), and is illustrated by a number of black and white photographs.
Once the characters and settings are established, the story moves along briskly. One chapter is written as a TV play, complete with stage directions. There is also a chapter about making a submission to a council meeting.
Photos were taken in the Horowhenua area, and $1 from the sale of each book will go towards Hearing Dogs NZ.
Primary (good readers) and Intermediate level.
Reviewed by Lynn
Three quick items of interest if you are living in (or close to) Wellington.Three quick items of interest if you are living in (or close to) Wellington.
Writers from the Wellington region are invited to submit a children’s story for the Jack Lasenby Award; a biennial award offered by the WCBA, (Wellington Children’s Book Association). First prize is $500 and entries close: October 31st 2008. Please email the.wcba@gmail.com for an entry form or you can pick up one from the Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie.
And what better person to inspire you than Joy Cowley, one of our most successful children's book writers. Tonight - Monday, 25th August, Joy is giving a talk entitled Getting Started as a Children’s Book Author that outlines how to get into the field of writing for children - and if you are in it already, how to develop your writing career further. Venue is Upper Chamber, Arts Centre, 61-69 Abel Smith Street, beginning 7.30 pm.
If you can’t attend Joy’s Cowley’s lecture then there’s another opportunity to attend a writing workshop in Wellington aimed at emerging children's book writers. This day long session will be lead by internationally published children's book author, creative writing teacher and manuscript assessor, Fleur Beale.
That workshop date is Sunday October 5th 2008, 9.30am-4pm at The Arts Centre in Abel Smith St. The cost is a very reasonable $50 - including morning and afternoon tea. However spaces are limited so be quick. For more information visit the www.the-wcba.blogspot.com
Flickr image by LarkingAbout's
Remember those picture book lists! We want them!
And you want to win some Babette Cole signed picture books too - you know you do.Remember those picture book lists! We want them!
And you want to win some Babette Cole signed picture books too - you know you do.
See here for how you can do this.
Flickr image by Natashalcd
This book isn't for everyone. Some will love it as I do, others will condemn it as a load of crap. In any event it is really deep, deeper than many people want to go or can be bothered with. Essentially it is a coming of age book of a teenage boy whose father is a genius and expects that his son will be the same. It is also a father and son story, a story of family relations, of life and death and of friendship, and there are moments in this book that will have you struck with wonder.
Nathan Nelson is an average boy and believes he is a disappointment to his father. A car accident in which his grandfather is killed, leaves him with a mental condition called synesthesia which gives him the sort of memory that a savant has. He is sent to a special clinic at which teenagers with special gifts are monitored. His father at last has something to be proud of, or does he? At this clinic Nathan meets Teresa and Toby who have special gifts and are to have a profound effect on his life.
The intellectual banter of this book is a treat, but it is essentially for senior secondary students or those that think deeply on the meaning of life with the tongue tucked firmly in the cheek.
Reviewed by Bob
Published by Atria Books
On Monday night the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards were held at the National Library of New Zealand. The Drawbridge Mural added some background glitter, the acrobatic stilt walkers some lofty entertainment and the passionate observations from readers, authors, speakers and judges were as lively and engaging as the finalists. A point judging panel convener Bob Docherty noted when he congratulated all those on the shortlist, “here is real quality writing and such a variety of genre and style”. And so to the winners, they are.
Esther Glen Award - for fiction Smashed by Mandy Hager (Random House New Zealand). The judges described this novel by Wellington based author Mandy Hager as a, “stand-out story about seeking the truth, with characters that are believable, strong and still in our minds long after we close the covers.”
"A brilliant story, from a master illustrator." Rats by Gavin Bishop (Random House New Zealand) took out the Russell Clark Award for illustration. Certainly a popular choice with the audience and in a lovely touch of Rats synchronicity Bishop noted in his speech (above) that this is the year of the rat, that he had recently come face to face with a rat in his compost bin, “we both shrieked” and that Russell Clark was one of his art tutors at University. "A book that will be around for a long time," and one that works particularly well as a read aloud the judges concluded
While the judges were, "disappointed in the number and the variety of entries for the non fiction award," they were encouraged “by the superb quality of the five finalists in the Elsie Locke Award for non fiction.” That prize went to Draw New Zealand Birds by Heather Arnold (Raupo Publishing). Here is a book the judges described as, "timeless, it will still be relevant in 50 years time… A professionally written, and laid out book"
The Te Kura Pounamu prize was given to Kai Ora! 2 – Tikanga a Iwi series (Hana Ltd) by Kararaina Uatuku, Hana Pomare, Charisma Rangipunga, Hana O’Regan and Che Wilson. This award recognises outstanding work in te reo Māori for children and young people. The judges said this beautifully photographed series was, “unique with nothing else available on the topics in Maori or English.”
Each award consists of a medal or Taonga and $1,000 prize money. Heartfelt congratulations to the finalists, the winners - and judging panel; Bob Docherty, Alice Heather, Belynda Smith, and Rosemary Tisdall.
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