Most Popular in 2011

The most popular books in St Brendan's School Library in 2011 were:

1st    Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney
2nd   Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
3rd=  Geronimo Stilton series by Geronimo Stilton
        The Pocket Dogs by Margaret Wild
        Guinness Book of Records 2008
4th=  Fox in Socks by Dr.Seuss
        Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy
        Thea Stilton series by Thea Stilton
        Upstart magazine
5th=  Lion's Lunch by Fiona Tierney
        Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson
        Pearlie and Sapphire by Wendy Harmer
        Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
        The Loon on the Moon by Chae Strathie

6th=  Choc Shock by Susannah McFarlane (EJ12 series)

        Class A by Robert Muchamore (Cherub series)

        Milo and the Magical Stones by Marcus Pfister

        The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith

        Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson.

Some of these books were also on the Most Popular in 2010 list, and indeed some have been popular for many years, but a lot are new to the list this time around.  Have you read any of these books?  Are they on your Most Popular list?  Are there any other books you think should be on our Most Popular list?  Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

Library Renovation Update #2

I found this picture here.

If you had a peek in the library on Friday or today you will have noticed that our new wall covering is up and so are some of our revamped shelves. What do you think? Does it look better already?  With luck the books will be shelved later in the week, but we still have a few more renovating tasks to complete so the library may not be open for use again until next week sometime. I'm looking forward to seeing you all back in there again ASAP.

The One and Only Ivan

A couple of weeks ago I entered a competition to win a copy of the new book The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. I was lucky enough to win one of the two copies of the book that were up for grabs - see here.  The book arrived in the post today and I'm really looking forward to reading it as it's had some very good reviews.  Keep a look out for The One and Only Ivan on the new books display in the library soon, after the renovation work and hopefully before the end of term.  In the meantime you might like to read a review, see here and here, or watch the book trailer. 

Thanks to My Best Friends are Books for the chance to win a copy.

Mysterious Book Sculptures

In 2011 a series of amazing paper sculptures kept appearing mysteriously in different locations around the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.....

You can find out more about this sculpture and more like it here.

Library Renovation Update

I found this picture here

If you had a peek through the window of the library last week you might have noticed Mrs Hainsworth, Mrs S-T and Mr Keegan busy painting -  although you might not have recognised them because they look a bit different in their painting gear! The painting is now finished and today I heard that most of our library shelving has been re-powder coated and the last shelves should be done by the end of the day. We are now waiting on the new wall covering which is to go over the brown hessian pin-boards that line much of the walls. Once the new wall covering is up we can put our re-vamped shelving back up, unpack the books and the library can get back to the business of being a library again.  Check back here about this time next week for another renovation update.

Read it! Loved it!

Read it! Loved it! is a site set up to help girls aged 10-19 find great fiction books to read. The site is run by teacher librarian Mr Gavin Jones who has read all of these books and can personally recommend them. It's divided into school year levels (including approximate ages) and gives suggestions of books for different fiction genre as well as giving overall favourites at each year level. There are some purple buttons (Mr Jones likes purple!) on the bottom of the home page where you can find out other stuff about reading and books, about Mr Jones and where you can also make suggestions or comments. Even better for todays tech world - the site has been designed to be used on mobile phones too. 

St Brendan's library has many of the books recommended at Read it! Loved it! for Year 6 to Year 8  and I can personally recommended many of these books myself too.

An equivalent site for boys is also planned.

Instant Replay

"Books had instant replay long before televised sports"

~ Bern Williams

Quote found at The Quote Garden!

The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Another in a series of posts about children's classic books available for borrowing from our school library. 

The Story of Doctor Dolittle was written by Hugh Lofting, it was published in 1920 and was the first in a series of books about Doctor Dolittle and his adventures.  In The Story of Doctor Dolittle we first meet the doctor with a soft spot for animals, who gives up treating people after his patients are scared away by his increasing number of strange pets.  His wise old parrot, Polynesia, teaches him animal languages and he starts treating sick animals instead. Doctor Dolittle's fame in the animal kingdom spreads throughout the world and soon he sets off to cure a monkey epidemic in Africa, having all sorts of exciting adventures on the way.  Hugh Lofting wrote and published ten books about Doctor Dolittle before his death in 1947, and a further two books containing both previously published and previously unpublished stories were released after his death.

A number of movie adaptions and a television series have been produced based on Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle books.

In our fiction section we have a copy of Doctor Dolittle Stories (which contains stories from all 12 of the Doctor Dolittle books) and a copy of Doctor Dolittle's First Adventure which has been adapted for beginning readers. We also have a copy of the picture book Hugh Lofting's Travels of Doctor Dolittle.

Upper Hutt Public Library has 5 copies of Hugh Lofting's books about the adventures of Doctor Dolittle in the Children's section and 3 DVD's.

Most of the above information is from or adapted from: here, here and here.

You can read The Story of Doctor Dolittle online here or here.

The Lorax Movie trailer

Another Dr Seuss favourite coming soon to a movie theatre near you...

Welcome Back for 2012

I found this picture here 

Welcome back to school everyone, hope you enjoyed your first day back at school and had fun over the holidays - and read some great books too of course.  The library is still closed for now as improvements have not yet been finished. We hope you don't mind having to wait a week or so to use the library and look forward to seeing you back there again soon when things are all done.  In the meantime you can peep through the library windows and see whats happening inside (not much just yet!) and of course you can keep checking out the library blog for updates and interesting book sites, videos, book and author posts and anything else I come across that I think you might find interesting or fun.