- Let's Play! (Shelalagh McGovern) and Small Fry Outdoors (Susie Cameron & Katrina Crook). Two books of games and inspiration for how to deal with (and what to do to entertain) two to twelve year olds. Very simple ideas, without the need for a lot of extra equipment. As the days lengthen out and summer approaches (crossing fingers) they will get even more use. I used one of the ideas at short notice for my evening storytime on Wednesday night (when Plan A turned out to be a bit of a flop) and it worked really well.
- Trouble Maker: the graphic novel (Janet and Alex Evanovich). Like so many other current authors, Janet Evanovich has made it into the graphic novel format with the Barnaby and Hooker series (also appearing in Metro Girl and Motor Mouth on the adult fiction shelves). It's fast paced with a sense of humour and works really well. I discovered it while looking for the Walking Dead graphic novels for someone who couldn't wait for the TV series to start this week.
- Best Shorts: Favourite short stories for sharing (selected by Avi). I was looking for a really good short story I could tell at our Milo and Marshmallows Family storytime so I went through two or three books of short stories, classic fairy tales and fables. In the end I narrowed it down to two - The Boy who Read aloud by Joan Aiken (which appears in Classic Fairy Tales to read aloud) and the eventual winner by New Zealand's most famous librarian - The Librarian and the Robbers by Margaret Mahy which appears in the noted book.
- The Putumayo children's music collection. I also spent some time listening to CD's to discover some new and different songs to spice up storytime sessions. I have become addicted to these CD's with irreverant lyrics (The Belly Button Song) and jazzed up, reggae, african, carribean or blues versions of old favourites such as Old McDonald. The adult collection is well worth a listen to as well.
- The Day of the Rain (Joy Cowley). I also went through a reasonable amount of picture books with the holiday programmes and storytimes. This Kiwi favourite is the one the kids liked. First published in 1993 they loved the pictures of the classroom floating along the motorway, down Queen Street and out into the Hauraki Gulf. The Wide-mouthed Frog Iain Smyth) was a big hit with young and old at storytime last night so takes the runners up spot.
Friday, 29 July 2011
Top 5 for Friday - The Eclectic Mix
I was struggling for a theme for the Top 5 blog this week. We have been rushed off our feet during the school holidays (Good) but it means that some days pass in a haze of racing from one job to the next with no time to draw breath in-between (Bad). So I thought I would share five things that I have found over the last two weeks to help with the Winter Warmers School Holiday programmes, or that just piqued my interest.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Congratulations NZ Post Winners
Last night New Zealand publishers, authors and the book public in general celebrated with the announcement of the 2011 NZ Post Book award winners. Here's a quick summary.
New Zealand Post Book of the Year and General Non-fiction Award winner
Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964 by Chris Bourke(Auckland University Press)
Fiction Award winner:
The Hut Builder by Laurence Fearnley(Penguin Group (NZ))
Poetry Award winner
The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls by Kate Camp(Victoria University Press)
Illustrated Non-fiction Award winner
The Passing World: The Passage of Life: John Hovell and the Art of Kowhaiwhai by Damian Skinner(Rim Books)
People's Choice Award
Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964by Chris Bourke(Auckland University Press)
NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction
Pip Adam with her short story collection, Everything We Hoped for (Victoria University Press)
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry
Lynn Jenner for her collection, Dear Sweet Harry (Auckland University Press)
NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction
Dr. Poia Rewi for Whaikōrero: The World of Māori Oratory (Auckland University Press).
For the full press release and details, head to the booksellers.co.nz website
New Zealand Post Book of the Year and General Non-fiction Award winner
Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964 by Chris Bourke(Auckland University Press)
Fiction Award winner:
The Hut Builder by Laurence Fearnley(Penguin Group (NZ))
Poetry Award winner
The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls by Kate Camp(Victoria University Press)
Illustrated Non-fiction Award winner
The Passing World: The Passage of Life: John Hovell and the Art of Kowhaiwhai by Damian Skinner(Rim Books)
People's Choice Award
Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964by Chris Bourke(Auckland University Press)
NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction
Pip Adam with her short story collection, Everything We Hoped for (Victoria University Press)
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry
Lynn Jenner for her collection, Dear Sweet Harry (Auckland University Press)
NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction
Dr. Poia Rewi for Whaikōrero: The World of Māori Oratory (Auckland University Press).
For the full press release and details, head to the booksellers.co.nz website
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Teen Reads
Here are a couple of reviews from a Book Chat group I belong to. We meet once a month and chat about children's and teens books, both fiction and non-fiction. These are a couple of titles we discussed in July.
I am J – Cris Beam Lisa picked this teen fiction up becoz of a review she had read but without any expectations. The cover (deliberately) doesn’t reveal if the main character is a male or female. It is actually about a girl who feels she is in the wrong body, something that you don’t actually click to until well into the story. Lisa found it thought provoking and eyeopening. Although quite a New York voice, J has a very real one that the teens will be able to relate to. The author has also done substantial work and research with transgender teens which adds to the realism. J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was: a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up as a 'real boy' and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible - from his family, from his friends, from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he's done hiding - it's time to be who he really is. And this time he's determined not to give up, no matter the cost..
Life on the Refrigrator Door – Alice Kuipers. Jeanette (the Mahurangi College Librarian) is always looking for something good for reluctant readers. She recommended this as a quick easy read as it is told largely by way of the post it notes between mother and daughter which they leave on the fridge door for each other. This makes the chapters short and snappy. Themes that are investigated in the story are family dynamics, an ill parent and taking (or making) the time to talk to each other. Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change. Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined.
I am J – Cris Beam Lisa picked this teen fiction up becoz of a review she had read but without any expectations. The cover (deliberately) doesn’t reveal if the main character is a male or female. It is actually about a girl who feels she is in the wrong body, something that you don’t actually click to until well into the story. Lisa found it thought provoking and eyeopening. Although quite a New York voice, J has a very real one that the teens will be able to relate to. The author has also done substantial work and research with transgender teens which adds to the realism. J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was: a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up as a 'real boy' and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible - from his family, from his friends, from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he's done hiding - it's time to be who he really is. And this time he's determined not to give up, no matter the cost..
Life on the Refrigrator Door – Alice Kuipers. Jeanette (the Mahurangi College Librarian) is always looking for something good for reluctant readers. She recommended this as a quick easy read as it is told largely by way of the post it notes between mother and daughter which they leave on the fridge door for each other. This makes the chapters short and snappy. Themes that are investigated in the story are family dynamics, an ill parent and taking (or making) the time to talk to each other. Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change. Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined.
Monday, 25 July 2011
A Reading Game
Inspired by the Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel, Sally decided to create a game she calls Reader’s Roulette. Here are her instructions.
The letters of the alphabet are divided into 6 groups, one for each side of a regular die. Oh, did I forget to mention you’d need one of those? Well, you do. You'll also need a library, but I know you'll have one of those lying around somewhere.
1 - A G M S Y
2 - B H N T Z
3 - C I O U
4 - D J P V
5 - E K Q W
6 - F L R X
Roll the die once. Say you roll a 2. This tells you that your author’s name will start with a B, H, N, T or Z. Roll the die again. If you roll a 1, your author’s name will start with the first letter in that group. If you roll a 2, it will start with the second. 3, it starts with third, and so on. If your roll is higher than the number of letters in the group, roll again until you get a useful number. For the purposes of this explanation, let’s just say you rolled a 4. So your author’s name will start with T.
Now roll your die twice more. Put the two numbers together to get a two-digit number. For example, a roll of 3 followed by a roll of 1 gives you the number 31.
You (hypothetically) have the letter T and the number 31.
Armed with these two pieces of information, go to the fiction shelves of your library. Find the part where the authors’ surnames start with T. There’ll probably be a big T somewhere around there to help you out. Librarians are good like that. Starting at the beginning of that section, count out 31 books. This is the book you’re going to read. Now, it’s no good complaining that you don’t read mystery/fantasy/romance/badly-written-trash. You committed yourself to reading this book when you rolled that die. This is Reader’s Roulette, my friend. Anything can happen. And who knows? You might surprise yourself and find a new favourite author. At the very least you’ll have tried something new.
Go on, read dangerously.
And in terms of the book that inspired this game, here is the description from our catalogue "Experimental Travel is not about checking off the major sights or following your guidebook to the letter; it's a playful way of travelling, where the journey's methodology is clear but the destination is usually unknown. Experimental Travel renders all destinations equal - be it a burger shack or the Taj Mahal. The book contains a series of travel games or 'invitations'. Do you yearn for the glories of yesteryear? Pack an octogenarian guidebook and replace the subway with a penny farthing for an Anachronistic Adventure. Do you like to gamble? Taste the real thrill of adventure with Trip Poker or Monopoly Travel. Are you desperate for a holiday but strapped for cash? To undertake Budget Tourism low funds are not an obstacle but a prerequisite. In all cases you are free to improvise as you wish." So you can see just how the book got Sally thinking.
The letters of the alphabet are divided into 6 groups, one for each side of a regular die. Oh, did I forget to mention you’d need one of those? Well, you do. You'll also need a library, but I know you'll have one of those lying around somewhere.
1 - A G M S Y
2 - B H N T Z
3 - C I O U
4 - D J P V
5 - E K Q W
6 - F L R X
Roll the die once. Say you roll a 2. This tells you that your author’s name will start with a B, H, N, T or Z. Roll the die again. If you roll a 1, your author’s name will start with the first letter in that group. If you roll a 2, it will start with the second. 3, it starts with third, and so on. If your roll is higher than the number of letters in the group, roll again until you get a useful number. For the purposes of this explanation, let’s just say you rolled a 4. So your author’s name will start with T.
Now roll your die twice more. Put the two numbers together to get a two-digit number. For example, a roll of 3 followed by a roll of 1 gives you the number 31.
You (hypothetically) have the letter T and the number 31.
Armed with these two pieces of information, go to the fiction shelves of your library. Find the part where the authors’ surnames start with T. There’ll probably be a big T somewhere around there to help you out. Librarians are good like that. Starting at the beginning of that section, count out 31 books. This is the book you’re going to read. Now, it’s no good complaining that you don’t read mystery/fantasy/romance/badly-written-trash. You committed yourself to reading this book when you rolled that die. This is Reader’s Roulette, my friend. Anything can happen. And who knows? You might surprise yourself and find a new favourite author. At the very least you’ll have tried something new.
Go on, read dangerously.
And in terms of the book that inspired this game, here is the description from our catalogue "Experimental Travel is not about checking off the major sights or following your guidebook to the letter; it's a playful way of travelling, where the journey's methodology is clear but the destination is usually unknown. Experimental Travel renders all destinations equal - be it a burger shack or the Taj Mahal. The book contains a series of travel games or 'invitations'. Do you yearn for the glories of yesteryear? Pack an octogenarian guidebook and replace the subway with a penny farthing for an Anachronistic Adventure. Do you like to gamble? Taste the real thrill of adventure with Trip Poker or Monopoly Travel. Are you desperate for a holiday but strapped for cash? To undertake Budget Tourism low funds are not an obstacle but a prerequisite. In all cases you are free to improvise as you wish." So you can see just how the book got Sally thinking.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Top 5 for Friday - Minus Two: Webcomics
When is a Top 5 not a Top 5. When it is a Top 3 of course. Sally was talking to me the other day about the world of web comics so I asked her to put something on paper. Here are the results (and they come with a warning that there is an element of adult content in all three).
Sally's Top Three Webcomics
Comics aren’t just found in the graphic novel section of your library (or bookshop) or on the funnies page of the newspaper. There is a wealth of comics (of wildly varying quality) out there on the web, and it can be hard to know where to start. So I thought I'd give you a jumping off point and list some of my favourites, should you like to dive into this world of webcomics yourself. This was supposed to be a Top 5 For Friday blog, but while I came up with the top three easily enough, I had trouble narrowing it down for the final two.
So, without further ado, here are Sally’s Top Five Three Webcomics!
1. Bad Machinery by John Allison - scarygoround.com
Bad Machinery tells the stories of three schoolgirl sleuths and three schoolboy investigators, attending Griswalds Grammar School in Keane End, Tackleford. While not exactly enemies, a mixture of pride, mistrust and pig-headedness keep them at cross purposes.
Bad Machinery is a spin off comic of John Allison's previous comic, Scary Go Round, which in turn was a spin-off of Bobbins. I never really read Bobbins, but if you've got plenty of time to kill and your eyes are up to the task of looking at a computer screen that long, I'd recommend going back through the archives of Scary Go Round.
The stories of Bad Machinery are delightfully weird and dosed with just the right amount of fantasy and magic. And while the humour may not be to everyone’s taste, it gets me laughing aloud (or if there are other people around, at least chortling to myself) on a regular basis.
There’s a link on the main page to the start of the current story line, but at this point it doesn’t take long to get through the Bad Machinery archive, and it’s a good idea to do so to get a proper introduction to the characters. Bad Machinery updates every weekday.
2. Hark, A Vagrant! by Kate Beaton – harkavagrant.com
Kate Beaton is hilarious. Of course it helps that her comics tend to be about historical personages or literature or super heroes, which are all things I enjoy myself. If you only read two things of hers, her interpretation of Nancy Drew covers is wonderful, and then there was her reimagining of Peter Parker as the Brown Recluse Spider Man. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. It was a close run thing as to which of Bad Machinery and Hark, A Vagrant! would end up as number one, and Bad Machinery only won because of the serial nature of the stories. Kate Beaton’s comics tend to be stand-alone, which is an advantage too, of course, because it means that you can dip in and out of them as you please. One of the downsides to Hark, A Vagrant! is that it doesn’t have a regular update schedule, but if you follow Kate Beaton on twitter she tweets when there’s an update, and often posts sketches and little journal comics to twitpic between updates. Kate Beaton has also had some of her cartoons published in the New Yorker.
3. Sam and Fuzzy by Sam Logan – samandfuzzy.com
Basically, Sam and Fuzzy is a comic about an ordinary, everyday kind of guy, whose best friend is a walking talking teddy bear. The strip has been running a while now and so much has happened, but most recently, Sam discovered he was the heir to the throne of the Emperor of the Ninja Mafia, which he has taken over, reformed and now uses it to do Good Deeds. Of course, the ninjas who are used to the old way of doing things aren’t so fond of this do-goodery, especially because it means they’re mostly out of work. But Sam and his small band of dedicated employees persevere to do battle with hamsters, robot clones and brand mascots (Fig Pig. Terrifying. Gross). There’s a lot of back story to get through if you’re really keen, but you can start at the beginning of Sam and Fuzzy Fix Your Problem and pick up the thread from there without any worries. A new character gets introduced here, and she makes a good audience surrogate, asking all the questions a newcomer to the comic needs answered. Sam and Fuzzy is updated on regular Mon/Wed/Fri schedule.
Honourable Mentions:
Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques – questionablecontent.net
Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran – octopuspie.com
XKCD by Randall Munroe – xkcd.com
Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell – gunnerkriggcourt.com
Sally's Top Three Webcomics
Comics aren’t just found in the graphic novel section of your library (or bookshop) or on the funnies page of the newspaper. There is a wealth of comics (of wildly varying quality) out there on the web, and it can be hard to know where to start. So I thought I'd give you a jumping off point and list some of my favourites, should you like to dive into this world of webcomics yourself. This was supposed to be a Top 5 For Friday blog, but while I came up with the top three easily enough, I had trouble narrowing it down for the final two.
So, without further ado, here are Sally’s Top Five Three Webcomics!
1. Bad Machinery by John Allison - scarygoround.com
Bad Machinery tells the stories of three schoolgirl sleuths and three schoolboy investigators, attending Griswalds Grammar School in Keane End, Tackleford. While not exactly enemies, a mixture of pride, mistrust and pig-headedness keep them at cross purposes.
Bad Machinery is a spin off comic of John Allison's previous comic, Scary Go Round, which in turn was a spin-off of Bobbins. I never really read Bobbins, but if you've got plenty of time to kill and your eyes are up to the task of looking at a computer screen that long, I'd recommend going back through the archives of Scary Go Round.
The stories of Bad Machinery are delightfully weird and dosed with just the right amount of fantasy and magic. And while the humour may not be to everyone’s taste, it gets me laughing aloud (or if there are other people around, at least chortling to myself) on a regular basis.
There’s a link on the main page to the start of the current story line, but at this point it doesn’t take long to get through the Bad Machinery archive, and it’s a good idea to do so to get a proper introduction to the characters. Bad Machinery updates every weekday.
2. Hark, A Vagrant! by Kate Beaton – harkavagrant.com
Kate Beaton is hilarious. Of course it helps that her comics tend to be about historical personages or literature or super heroes, which are all things I enjoy myself. If you only read two things of hers, her interpretation of Nancy Drew covers is wonderful, and then there was her reimagining of Peter Parker as the Brown Recluse Spider Man. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. It was a close run thing as to which of Bad Machinery and Hark, A Vagrant! would end up as number one, and Bad Machinery only won because of the serial nature of the stories. Kate Beaton’s comics tend to be stand-alone, which is an advantage too, of course, because it means that you can dip in and out of them as you please. One of the downsides to Hark, A Vagrant! is that it doesn’t have a regular update schedule, but if you follow Kate Beaton on twitter she tweets when there’s an update, and often posts sketches and little journal comics to twitpic between updates. Kate Beaton has also had some of her cartoons published in the New Yorker.
3. Sam and Fuzzy by Sam Logan – samandfuzzy.com
Basically, Sam and Fuzzy is a comic about an ordinary, everyday kind of guy, whose best friend is a walking talking teddy bear. The strip has been running a while now and so much has happened, but most recently, Sam discovered he was the heir to the throne of the Emperor of the Ninja Mafia, which he has taken over, reformed and now uses it to do Good Deeds. Of course, the ninjas who are used to the old way of doing things aren’t so fond of this do-goodery, especially because it means they’re mostly out of work. But Sam and his small band of dedicated employees persevere to do battle with hamsters, robot clones and brand mascots (Fig Pig. Terrifying. Gross). There’s a lot of back story to get through if you’re really keen, but you can start at the beginning of Sam and Fuzzy Fix Your Problem and pick up the thread from there without any worries. A new character gets introduced here, and she makes a good audience surrogate, asking all the questions a newcomer to the comic needs answered. Sam and Fuzzy is updated on regular Mon/Wed/Fri schedule.
Honourable Mentions:
Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques – questionablecontent.net
Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran – octopuspie.com
XKCD by Randall Munroe – xkcd.com
Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell – gunnerkriggcourt.com
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