On the New Books Display this Week

Picture Book:

• "Roo and Vladimir (An Unlikely Friendship)" by Minky STAPLETON
• "The Gubyllub" by Lisa HAMILTON-GIBBS

Fiction:

• "Robodog" by David WALLIAMS
• "Star Cat" by James TURNER (Star Cat series)
• "Beyond Platform 13" by Eva IBBOTSON & Sabina POUNDER

Non-fiction:

• "Octavius Hadfield The Friend of the Tangata Whenua" by Alison CONDON & Gina TAGGART (Chronicles of Paki series)
• "Wīremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi The King Maker" by Alison CONDON & Gina TAGGART (Chronicles of Paki series)

Senior Fiction:

• "All The Pieces of Me" by Libby SCOTT & Rebecca WESTCOTT

On the New Books Display this Week

Picture Book:

• "Comet the Red Bus" by Christopher CANDY
• "Llamas in Pyjamas" by Matt COSGROVE

Fiction Book:

• "The Thirteenth Home of  Noah Bradley" by Amber Lee DODD
• "Fairy Unicorns : Magic Forest" by Zanna DAVIDSON (Fairy Unicorns series)  
• "Ninja Kid 7 - Ninja Toys!" by Ahn DO (Ninja Kid series)  

Non-fiction:

• "Vertical Drop - Gravity in Motion" by John ALLAN (Amusement Park Science series) 
• "What Happened When in the World - History as You've Never Seen it Before" senior editor - Rob HOUSTON 

Senior Fiction:

• "Scorched Earth" by Robert MUCHAMORE (Henderson's Boys series) 
• "Lily and the Rockets" by Rebecca STEVENS

Books to Movies ...

Released online in February this year the Disney movie Flora & Ulysses is based on the book of the same name written by Kate Di Camillo.

Imagine - International Day of Peace

Today is International Day of Peace and today the lyrics of John Lennon's famous song Imagine, about peace and tolerance, are due for publication in a picture book illustrated by Jean Jullien. 

The book is published by Clarion Publishers in conjunction with Amnesty International and follows the travels of a pigeon spreading a message of friendship and hope to other birds.

The above information is adapted from Publishers Weekly HERE.

You can find out more about the book and Amnesty International HERE.

Charlotte's Web

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

Charlotte's Web is one of several popular children's books written by E.B.White. Charlotte's Web was published on the 15th of October 1952 and is the story of a girl named Fern who loves a little pig named Wilbur, of Wilbur's life growing up on the farm and about his friend Charlotte, a large grey spider, who lives in the barn with Wilbur. When it becomes clear that Wilbur is being well fed for a reason, Charlotte and Wilbur are determined to foil the plans of Mr. Zuckerman, the farmer. So with the help of Charlotte and her “terrific” webs and other barnyard friends, Wilbur becomes the prize-winning pig at the County Fair and the most famous pig ever.

This month it's the 60th Anniversary of Charlotte's Web and below is a book trailer from HarperKids to help celebrate:

I found out about this video here.

Charlotte's Web has also been adapted for film, first as an animated feature in 1973 and more recently starring actors and real animals in 2006.

Currently we have 2 copies of Charlotte's Web by E.B.White in the Fiction section of our library.

Upper Hutt Library currently holds 5 copies of Charlotte's Web by E.B.White as well as 2 picture book versions; 2 audio books and a DVD.

The above information about Charlotte's Web was adapted from here and here. If you'd like to find out more about E.B.White and his books, including his other children's classics Stuart Little and Trumpet of the Swan, you can find more here.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Below is a video of Eric Carle reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar in celebration of Very Hungry Caterpillar Day - Tuesday, 20th March 2012.



I found out about Very Hungry Caterpillar Day & this video here.

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.

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 Jungle Book

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

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories published in 1895 by British author Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by the authors father. 

Set in the jungles of India The Jungle Book tells of a wolf-pack which lives and hunts in the forest. Led by the lone wolf Akela and the wisdom of the venerable bear Balloo, the pack stumbles across a baby human, a man-cub, they call him Mowgli. Raised by the pack and by the Law of the Jungle, Mowgli learns to live and fight using guile and determination instead of tooth and claw. With his friends Balloo and Bagheera, the black panther, Mowgli must confront the tiger Sher Khan, the tyrannical lord of the jungle, for the safety of the pack and to uphold the Law. Although the stories of Mowgli are what most people think of when they hear of the Jungle Book, Mowgli's story is interspersed with other tales of the jungle, such as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a mongoose against the deadly Cobra, a tale of Kotick the White Seal on a search for a safe haven for his kind and the overheard conversation of camp animals by a British soldier who understands 'beast-talk'. 

Rudyard Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about six-and-half years. The Jungle Book was based on the author's view of India as well as his interpretation of the various folk-tales told to him by the Indian nurses of his childhood. To the general public, India was a land of exotic mystery, full of spice, magic and adventure. Kipling’s stories gave a glimpse of the magic land and served as an entertaining read for adults as well as moral parables for children.

Because of it's moral tone The Jungle Book came to be used as a motivational book by the Cub Scouts, a junior element of the Scouting movement. This use of the book was approved by Kipling after a direct petition by Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement. Akela, the head wolf in The Jungle Book, has become a senior figure in the movement, the name being traditionally adopted by the leader of each Cub Scout pack.

A number of movie adaptions of  The Jungle Book, or parts of it, have been produced including live-action and animated versions.

We have Tales of Mowgli from The Jungle Book and an abridged version of The Jungle Book in the fiction section of our library. We also have a large picture book of the Disney version in the Big Browsing Box.

Upper Hutt Public Library has 4 copies of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling in the Childrens section and 2 books of the Disney film adaption, as well as a copy of the DVD featuring the Disney movies The Jungle Book & The Jungle Book 2.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling can be read online at Project Gutenburg and is available for download free at Project Gutenburg.

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

Michael Morpurgo

Another in a series of posts about popular children's authors and their books.

Michael Morpurgo is, in his own words, “oldish, married with three children, and a grandfather six times over.” Born in 1943, he attended schools in London, Sussex and Canterbury - at least one of these was horrible enough to inspire him to describe it obliquely in The Butterfly Lion.  He went on to London University to study English and French, followed by a brief and unsuccessful spell in the army. He then took up teaching and a job in a primary school in Kent. It was there that he discovered what he wanted to do - write children's books. Michael Morpurgo has a gift for magical storytelling, and his books also often tackle social issues. Out of the Ashes, for example, is about the foot and mouth crisis in the United Kingdom in 2001. He is probably one of the best-known writers for children around today and has published over 100 books, many of which have received awards and/or been translated into other languages.

While teaching he realized that many of his students had very little experience of animals other than what they see on television, this gave Michael and his wife the idea of setting up Farms for City Children. They moved to Devon over thirty years ago to develop this idea and now run three farms where over 2000 children a year stay for a week as 'farmers'.

In our library we have a Picture Book Wombat Goes Walkabout by Michael Morpurgo and a number of  Fiction & Senior Fiction books, including Cock-a-doodle-doo, The Nine Lives of Montezuma, The Butterfly Lion, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, Shadow, Out of the Ashes and Private Peaceful. 

Upper Hutt Library currently holds copies of more than 50 children's books by Michael Morpurgo and two audio books.

The above information about Michael Morpurgo was adapted from here, here, and here.

You can follow this link find out more about Michael Morpurgo and his books 

Black Beauty

This is the first in a series of posts about children's classic books available for borrowing from our school library.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell is the compelling tale of a spirited young Thoroughbred that captured the hearts of readers throughout Victorian England when it was first published in 1877. Black Beauty grows up in the fields and horse meadows of Victorian England but when the young black colt is sold, he has no idea of the hardships he is about to face. Read his story in his own words as he tells of his life in nineteenth-century England, his treatment under many different masters, both good and bad, and as he faces and overcomes danger, mistreatment and cruelty in a world that cares little for the happiness of animals.

We have two copies of Black Beauty in the library, one in Fiction and one in Senior Fiction.