G'day - Namaste

This week is a real United Nations one. Yesterday we were up in the northern hemisphere with the Scots. Today we head west to a celebrations with a couple of other countries.

They are our nearest neighbours, many of us have spent time there and we LOVE to beat them at whatever sport is going. Today the Australians break our the barbies and head to the beaches to celebrate Australia Day. They have had a hard time of it lately (and that is not just the loss of the Ashes to England), so a little bit of lightness will go down well across the ditch.

There are more different subject headings than the computer can cope with when I type Australia into our catalogue for a subject search. Some are quite curious (Australian bottles or Australian eccentrics) but others speak for themselves (Australia Discovery and Exploration). Australian fiction, especially the books set in the outback are also very popular. Authors such as Peter Watt, Tamara McKinley, James Roy and Bryce Courtenay are just the tip of the iceberg and some of my favourites are the childrens and young adult authors such as Mem Fox and John Marsden.

Meanwhile, further west, India is celebrating Republic Day which some websites call the "culmination of Ghandi's dream". It is a vast and colourful land, which I have not visited but friends who have come home with telling of a vast tapestry of people and cultures all interwoven into the largest democracy in the world.

Just as with Australia, a subject search in our catalogue for India brings up a wide variety of resources from fiction and non-fiction to books, music and DVD's. Read the book Q & A by Vikas Swarup and then watch the movie that was made from it Slumdog Millionare. Visit and view Bollywood through the library and check out our multicultural resources to see if we have reading in your first language. We have 27 different languages in our collection so check out this link to our website to see if yours is included.

Wherever you are in New Zealand or the world, have an awesome day everyone.