Saturday, 15 December 2012

Term 1 - the BIG IDEA is belonging

Check out Mrs Walch's Belonging Pinterest board - with loads of ideas of books and movies with belonging as a theme...

http://pinterest.com/pennywalch/big-idea-belonging/

Below are some of the books included on that board, in case you can't be bothered going there:


Belonging by Jeannie Baker (SOP/B)

Mirror by Jeannie Baker (SOP/B)


The Fox by Margaret Wild (SOP/W)

The Adventures of a Nose by Viviane Schwarz (SOP/S)

Child of Aotearoa by Melanie Drewery and Bruce Potter (PIC/D)

The Arrival by Shaun Tan (SOP/T)

The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan (SOP/T)
Willy the Wimp and Willy the Champ by Anthony Browne

One Gorilla by Anthony Browne

Cinderella
Hansel and Gretel
Snow White
The Ugly Duckling
Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Erika’s Story by Ruth Van der Zee and Roberto Innocenti (SOP/V)

Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers (PIC/J)


The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers (PIC/J)


This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers


The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon by Aaron Blabey (SOP/B)


Sunday Chutney by Aaron Blabey (SOP/B)


The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (SOP/W)Corduroy by Don Freeman (PIC/F)Weslandia by Paul FleischmanAre you my Mother? by PD Eastman (PIC/E)The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle (PIC/C)The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy by Jane Thayer Aaargh, Spider! by Lydia Monks Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (PIC/S)The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (F/SEL)Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (F/SEL)Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French (PIC/F)Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett (SOP/G)The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (PIC/P)Charlotte’s Web by EB White (PIC/W)Nobody’s Dog by Lindy Fisher (SOP/F) NZ AuthorThe Good Fortunes Gang by Margaret Mahy (F/MAH)We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (PIC/R)

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Term 4, Week 1... That's Fantasy

October is International School Library Month and we are celebrating by giving out bookmarks and highlighting the importance of the Library to the school!

The new books this week are all of the Fantasy genre and so if you enjoy losing yourself in fantastic, weird and wonderful stories then there will be something here for you...

Muncle Trogg by Janet Foxley (F/FOX)

Ten year old Muncle Trogg is the smallest giant in the world.  Even his baby sister, Flubb, is bigger than him!
And it would be fair to say that his family aren't the sharpest tacks in the box.  As a result of their lack of... common sense, Muncle and his Smalling friend Emily have some crazy adventures. 














Madame Pamplemousse and the Time Travelling Cafe by Rupert Kingfisher (F/KIN)

I love the premise behind this book (and the others in the series) which is that of a coffee machine which is a time machine... in Paris.  
Imagine... wandering the streets of Paris and finding a quirky little coffee shop with an oversize coffee machine, whose wares will send you off to other times and places.  Where would you go?  What would you do?



The Secret Kingdom by Jenny Nimmo (F/NIM)
If you have read the rather fabulous Charlie Bone series, then this book is a definite must for you, as it is the prequel to Charlie Bone and explains the mystical origins of the Red King, Charlie's magical ancestor. 


A Crack in the Sky by Kyle Mewburn (F/MEW)

Woah... this book takes you on the bizarre, and yet oddly compelling, journey of Conor and his mum.
Conor's dad has disappeared in slightly odd circumstances and Conor and his mum are down on their luck.  They need a new sofa, but can't afford to buy one, so when they see a shiny new red one washed up on the beach, they decide to take it home.  
Little do they know that this is no ordinary sofa and it takes Conor on a strange and eye-opening journey.  




The Time Stealers by Glynne MacLean (SNR/MAC)
"Yakkity, yakkity, yak. If it weren't for his self-obsessed ex-girlfriend Jaz, Neil Jarvie would be entirely happy with his life in Tal City. Sure there were probably more manicured trees than there were people, but the surveillance net was so thorough you could always find any person or place or information you wanted on your mobile. Except, oddly enough, about the history of Tal City. And now he had a Timer on his hands. He'd thought it would be interesting to help out a time traveller, but this one seemed obsessed with her own history, as well as ridiculously paranoid about surveillance..."

The Time Stealers

Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls (SNR/NIC)
Molly and her big sister Hannah are staying with their grandparents after the death of their mother, in order to enable their dad to 'Sort Things Out' at home. 
The sisters are both struggling with their grief, but show it in completely different ways.  Hannah is bolshy, defiant and rude, while Molly seems to be internalising her grief. 

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes edited by Kazu Kibuishi (GRPH/K)
I shall be honest straight up... I am no fan of graphic novels.  I have always struggled with the format and that has meant that I have never really understood the fascination!
I have read one other graphic novel (Coraline by Neil Gaiman) which I actually really enjoyed, but I am yet to be completely convinced!
This book has gone some way to making me change my mind!  It is edited by the author of Amulet which spends ALOT of time on the reserves shelf here at Southwell. 





Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Classic Reads


I am putting together a list of classic books which we have available in the Library which many of our children might be interested in.

I know I have a number of children, in Year 4 especially, who are always looking for classics to read, and so I have decided to compile a list which will help them when they are looking for a new book.

What is great is that some of the books we have in a number of different formats, so the story can be reached by a larger number of children.

This is what I have put together so far...

Classics to try
F = General Fiction
FUN = Fun Read
POP = Popular Paperback
FUP = Popular Paperback / Fun Read
PIC = Picture Book
SOP = Sophisticated Picture Book
398.2 = Non Fiction

2000 Leagues Under the Sea 
Jules Verne                               
F/VER
FUN/VER
GRPH/V

Aesop’s Fables 
Aesop
SOP/F
SOP/W
398.2
398.2 FUN

Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll                            
FUN/CAR
SOP/C
GRPH/P

A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett        
F/BUR

Anne of Green Gables           
L.M. Montgomery            
F/MON

Black Beauty                           
Anna Sewell                             
F/SEW
PIC/S

The Borrowers                       
Mary Norton                            
F/NOR

Call of the Wild 
Jack London                  
F/LON
FUP/FRA

Charlotte’s Web                     
E.B. White                                 
F/WHI
PIC/E
PIC/L

A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens                        
FUP/FRA
SOP/D

Daddy-Long-Legs
Jean Webster                            
F/WEB

David Copperfield                   
Charles Dickens                        
F/FRA

Fairy Tales (including Grimm)                                               
398.2
F/GRI

The Famous Five (series)        
Enid Blyton                              
F/BLY

Finn Family Moonintroll        
Tove Jansson                           
POP/JAN

Five Children and It               
E. Nesbit                   
F/NES
POP/N
 SOP/N

Goodnight Mr Tom
Michelle Magorian                    
F/MAG

Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift                          
F/SWI
POP/SWI
FUN/STI

The Hatchet (series)                
Gary Paulsen                           
F/PAU

Heidi                         
Johanna Spyri                           
F/SPY
FUN/HEI

The Hobbit   
J.R.R. Tolkien                          
F/TOL
GRPH/T     

The House at Pooh Corner    
A.A. Milne                                
F/MIL

Huckleberry Finn                             
Mark Twain                              
POP/TWA
FUP/TWA

I Am David                             
Anne Holm                               
F/HOL

The Incredible Journey          
Sheila Burnford                         
ARCH/BUR

Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Jules Verne                               
F/VER
FUP/VER

Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling                       
GRPH/B

Just So Stories
Rudyard Kipling                       
F/KIP

King Solomon’s Mines           
Sir H. Rider Haggard                
FUP/HAG

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow          
Washington Irving                     
GRPH/H

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (series)                     
CS Lewis                  
F/LEW
SOP/O
SOP/L
                                                                                               
The Little House on the Prairie
Laura Inglis Wilder                   
F/WIL

Little Women                          
Louisa M. Alcott                       
F/ALC
POP/ALC
FUN/ALC

The Lost World                      
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle            
FUP/DOY

Moonfleet                
J. Meade Falkner                      
F/FAL

Number the Stars                             
Lois Lowry                               
F/LOW

Peter Pan
J.M. Barrie                                
F/BAR
FUN/TRI
PIC/B

The Phantom Tollbooth                   
Norton Juster                            
F/JUS

Pippi Longstocking                
Astrid Lindgren                         
F/LIN

The Railway Children            
E. Nesbit                                  
PIC/D

Robinson Crusoe                    
Daniel Defoe                             
F/DEF

The Secret Garden                 
Frances Hodgson Burnett         
F/BUR
FUN/BUR
FUP/BUR
PIC/D

The Secret Seven (series)        
Enid Blyton                              
F/BLY

The Silver Sword                    
Ian Serrailier                             
F/SER
POP/SER

Swallows and Amazons                   
Arthur Ransome                       
F/RAN

A Tale of Two Cities              
Charles Dickens                        
FUP/FRA

The Three Musketeers           
Alexandre Dumas                      
F/DUM

Through the Looking Glass   
Lewis Carroll                            
F/CAR

Tom Sawyer 
Mark Twain                              
POP/TWA

Treasure Island                      
Robert Louis Stevenson            
F/STE
FUN/STE
FUP/STE

The Velveteen Rabbit             
Margery Williams                      
SOP/W      

The Water Babies                 
Charles Kingsley                       
F/KIN

What Katy Did (series)
Susan Coolidge                        
F/COO

White Fang
Jack London                            
F/LON

The Wind in the Willows        
Kenneth Graham                       
F/GRA
FUN/GRA
GRPH/G
PIC/G

The Wizard of Oz                            
Frank Baum         
F/BAU
FUN/BAU
GRPH/B
SOP/B