Dahlia Malaeulu Author Visit

On Wednesday, 24th November, author Dahlia Malaeulu visited St Brendan's. Dahlia was scheduled to visit us in September but with New Zealand going into a snap Level 4 lockdown due the COVID-19 Delta variant before this and Level 3 restrictions following we had to reschedule. Dahlia's visit was definitely worth the wait!

Dahlia held three 45 minute sessions, adjusting her approach to the age of the student audience. She told us about how she got started writing books, originally writing stories to introduce her two young boys to the Samoan language through numbers, colours and days of the week. Her first three books, published in 2019, were Mase's Room, Lagi Spies and Malia Shares. These proved so popular that she has continued writing books introducing the Samoan language to older children, and babies, and also sharing with young adult readers stories of growing up in New Zealand as a young Samoan in the books Teina Samoa and Tama Samoa.

In all three sessions Dahlia prompted students to say the Samoan numbers and cultural items after her. She read and shared the board book Going to Te Papa - Asiasiga 'i Le Falemata'aga - Te Papa about important Samoan cultural items showing and sharing her knowledge of the items and handing examples around for students to see and touch.

Thank you so much for coming to visit us Dahlia, we hope you can visit us again one day!

Juliette MacIver Visit

On Monday, 17th August, author Juliette MacIver visited St Brendan's. With most of New Zealand going into COVID-19 Level 2 restrictions just a few days before, we were grateful that Juliette was still happy to visit this week and start off our 2020 Book Week Celebrations. 

Juliette held three 30-40 minute sessions, instead of the two 1 hour sessions originally planned, to reduce the numbers at each session to below 100. She focused on a different picture book in each of her sessions, as well as touching on others as opportunity arose.

The first session was with our Explorers team (Yrs 1-3) and focused on the picture book That's Not a Hippopotamus. The most memorable moment was the dance she had them all perform to try and coax the very shy soft toy hippopotamus she had brought along out of her carrier bag!

The second session was with our Adventurers team (Yrs 4-6) which focused on the book Yak and Gnu. During this session Juliette asked the children where we might see someone using a kayak or canoe - the most amusing suggestion was "in a toilet"!!

The last session with our Navigators team (Yrs 7-8) was after a break for morning tea and focused on the books Gwendolyn and then Queen Alice's Palaces. Before she shared the second story she explained how she used rhyme in this book and then had the students come up with as many words as they could that rhymed with "knew" and "due". She then had them rank them from most likely to least likely to be used as building material for a palace.

With each group Juliette spoke about where she writes, sharing photographs of herself writing while doing yoga - authors ARE really good at telling stories! She explained that she likes rhyming stories and likes to write on blank paper without lines, that way she can move ideas around using arrows and make lists of words that rhyme with each other down the side of the page. Juliette explained that when she was at school she didn't like re-checking her writing but that now days she liked re-reading it and trying to make it better and better. She explained that she had had lots of stories rejected by publishers but that she keeps trying to improve them and some books were rejected several times before they were finally published.

Thank you for visiting our school Juliette, we very much enjoyed your visit and hope you enjoyed your time with us also.

Juliette's visit was organised through the Read NZ Te Pou Muramura "Writer's in Schools" programme with support from Creative New Zealand. 

#writersinschools

Ruth Paul Visit

Last Tuesday illustrator Ruth Paul visited St Brendan's. She talked about many of the books she has written and illustrated and based her presentations around her book I Am Jellyfish which won the Picture Book section of the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Ruth began her first two sessions with the Middle/Upper Middle and Senior syndicates by having students volunteer to act out the three main characters (Jellyfish, Swordfish and Squid) from I Am Jellyfish in front of the rest of the students.

Ruth explained how she came up with her ideas, including the funny jokes, and about her illustration process and the different art techniques she has used. She pointed out that her first drafts of the text and illustrations were often quite different to what the final book looked like as the words were tweaked, and her illustrations became more detailed. She emphasized that she had to keep trying, she didn't get things "right" the first time and had to try again and again until she was pleased with the result. 

One group had time to plan their own picture book, with Ruth writing the ideas and making illustrations on the whiteboard, unfortunately the other group ran out of time to do this. Both groups were able to ask Ruth questions which included: 

• Who is your favourite author? 
• Which of your books is your favourite?  and
• Which of your books sold the most copies?

After morning tea Ruth read her book I Am Jellyfish to the Junior syndicate who were also able to plan their own picture book, with Ruth again writing the ideas and drawing illustrations on the whiteboard.

Thank you for visiting our school Ruth, we very much enjoyed your visit and hope you enjoyed your time with us also.

Ruth's visit was organised through the New Zealand Book Council "Writer's in Schools" programme with the support of Creative New Zealand. 

#writersinschools

Fifi Colston Visit

Today author & illustrator Fifi Colston visited St Brendan's. She talked about some of the books she has worked on, a different book with each Syndicate. She also held a writing workshop with a small group of children who are very interested in writing.

First Fifi read the picture book Far, Far from Home written by Elizabeth Pulford to the Junior syndicate and spoke about how she illustrated the book.

Before morning tea she spoke to the Upper Middle and Senior syndicate about her research and the process she followed while working on illustrations for the book Torty and the Soldier written by Jennifer Beck.  Fifi explained how she had visited Torty, who is still alive and spends time with different families in the Little family now that the soldier, Stewart Little, is no longer alive. Fifi also explained how she took extra care to make sure the scenes and soldiers uniforms in the book were true to how they would have been during World War I.

After morning tea Fifi spoke to the Middle syndicate about her book Wearable Wonders. A few lucky students got to dress up and everyone learn't about how to use free stuff and recycled items to create Wearable Wonders!

Before lunch a group of 16 students from the Upper Middles and Seniors spent about an hour with Fifi for a writing workshop. Together they created a story starter, deciding on the traits of the main character, April Muffin, and her background story. It was interesting to see the very different directions the story took even though the students all started with the same initial idea.

Fifi's visit was organised through the New Zealand Book Council "Writer's in Schools" programme with the support of Creative New Zealand.

P.J. Sheppard Visit

Yesterday author PJ Sheppard visited St Brendan's and read his picture book Davey's Hairy Fear to our year 3 and 4 students. He then talked about the process he goes through when he writes and where he gets his ideas from. He also explained that although a picture book is quite short there are many steps to go through from the first ideas and plans, through adjustments and improvements to the final book, it takes months and months. Some people illustrate their own picture books but PJ said although he's good at writing, he's not so good at drawing so he asked someone else to illustrate his book. Afterwards there was time for a few questions before PJ needed to head away to his next appointment. Thanks for your visit yesterday PJ, it was a great way to start the week! 

PJ Sheppard was born in New Zealand but now lives near Melbourne, Australia. Davey's Hairy Fear is the first of three books about Davey, that PJ has written, the other two books will be available in 2016. You can find out more about PJ's books on his website HERE.

Look out for a copy of Davey's Hairy Fear in our library soon.

Meet Andy Griffiths!

If you're after something to do this week and you're a fan of Andy Griffiths books you could head in to Wellington or Lower Hutt and meet him on:

• Thurs, 1st October, 11.30am-1pm at Whitcoulls Lambton Quay
• Fri, 2nd October, 2.30pm-4pm at Whitcoulls Queensgate

You can also find date and time details for Auckland & Christchurch appearances by Andy Griffiths  on Whitcoulls Facebook page HERE too.

Philippa Werry Visit

Today author Philippa Werry visited St Brendan's and spoke to our Senior Syndicate. Philippa spent her first two sessions with our Year 5&6 students and then after morning tea she spoke to our Year 7&8's. She talked about her writing and how she goes about choosing what to write about and about some of her books. Students were then able to ask her questions - some of these she didn't recall being asked before. Philippa has put some of the questions on her blog here. Is your question there?
Like many school students, our seniors have recently been studying ANZAC Day and WWI and to finish off her sessions Philippa read her picture book Best Mates, which is set in Gallipolli in WWI. The students were completely transfixed while she read and there was the odd tear filled eye as the story pulled at heart strings.

Thank you so much for your visit Philippa, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and thank you Mrs Williams for having the idea to invite her.

Philippa Werry books we have in our library: ANZAC Day: The New Zealand Story, Waitangi Day: The New Zealand Story, Harbour Bridge: My New Zealand Story, Lighthouse Family: My New Zealand Story, Enemy at the Gate, The Great Chocolate Cake Bake-off, The Lost Watch and Wonderful Wheels Day.

Philippa's visit was part of the New Zealand Book Council's Writers in Schools programme. You can find out more about Philippa and her books on her website HERE and the New Zealand Book Council website HERE.

Derek Landy is coming to New Zealand - Again!

Fans of Derek Landy and Skulduggery Pleasant will be pleased to hear that Derek is coming back to New Zealand later this year. Those in the Wellington region have the chance to see him on Friday, 3rd October at 5.30pm at Scots College. Tickets cost $10 per child/adult or $33 for a copy of The Dying of the Light + a ticket. 

All profits to Save the Children.

To book contact:
The Children's Bookshop
Shop 26 Kilbirnie Plaza
Kilbirnie
Wellington
Ph: 04 387 3905
email: books@thechildrensbookshop.co.nz

NZ Post Children's Book Awards 2013 - Finalists Visit

Image via Booksellers NZ

On Tuesday St Brendan's year 6 students were treated to a visit by author Gillian Candler and illustrator Ned Barraud as part of the NZ Post Children's Book Awards festival activities. Their book, At the Beach : Explore & Discover the New Zealand Seashore is a finalist in the Non-fiction section of this years awards. Gillian explained about how she came up with the idea for the book and some of the steps they took to decide which animals and plants to include, and which to leave out. Ned showed us one of his original drawings and we saw how and heard about why it changed to the illustration that finally appeared in the book. The students asked some great questions and really enjoyed the visit. We wish Gillian and Ned luck for the NZ Post Children's Book Awards ceremony next week.

Photo by Mrs Lilley

Thanks to Danny at Upper Hutt Library for organizing this visit.

Derek Landy visits Upper Hutt

Yesterday Irish author Derek Landy visited Upper Hutt, he was co-hosted by Hutt International Boys School (HIBS) and St Brendan's School. The event was held in HIBS auditorium and students from the Hutt Valley, and perhaps a bit further afield, were welcomed by Kapa Haka performed by St Brendan's senior students. (Well done seniors, I've had some great feedback from other schools about your Kapa Haka.)

Derek began by talking about his life - from childhood till now, it took about nine minutes...  He filled in some of the rest of his talk telling us about his pets, his German Shepherd - who now lives with his parents, and two Staffordshire Bull Terriers that he adopted as older dogs.  He also told us how he became a Dog and Cat person after originally being a Dog person.  It was all the fault of this little grey cat who kept visiting him in his new house and staring at him as he was working on his next Skulduggery book. The cat kept visiting, and kept visiting and he noticed it was getting a bit thin, so he started to feed it (big mistake!) He didn't know if the cat was a boy or a girl, and he didn't ask. He soon found out when two cute wee kittens arrived.  Now he had three cats!  Derek soon discovered that cats can multiply a bit like rabbits if you're not careful and at one point he had 13 cats in his house. Lucky for him he managed to find homes for most of them with other people.

Derek is "World Famous" for his Skulduggery Pleasant series of books for children and young adults - and he has a few adult fans too I hear! We found out some interesting facts about the Skulduggery books and here are a couple that I remember from yesterday. 

• It took him six months to write the first draft of the first Skulduggery Pleasant book, and in this first draft Tanith Lee was killed.
• The only character that is based on a real person in some way is Skulduggery Pleasant who is based on Derek Landy  Stephanie/Valkyrie who is based on a martial arts student he knew - this helped him with how a teenage girl would react to things, he didn't know this since he was never a teenage girl.
• There may one day be a Skulduggery Pleasant movie.

photo by Mr Lawrence

After question time those who were interested (and who remembered to bring their Skulduggery book along) were able to go and get a book signed by Derek.  A few St Brendan's students had books with them for signing - of course us adults were only in the photo with Derek Landy and the students to make up the numbers - Honest!

You can find out more about Derek Landy and the Skulduggery Pleasant books in my earlier blog post here

Christopher Paolini visits Upper Hutt

Photo by Lis at HIBS

Students from  Hutt Valley schools, and perhaps some from further afield, were yesterday treated to a presentation at Hutt International Boys School by Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle series. Christopher told us a little about his early childhood - he really did not want to learn to read, he even told his mother he "hated reading". At about age 5 he experienced a complete switch and became hooked on reading. The culprit was the first book he ever borrowed 'by himself' from the library, he doesn't remember the exact book but recalls it had a bright appealing cover and was a detective type story where tomato sauce was mistaken for blood!   

Christopher was Home Schooled and after graduating at age 15 he became quite bored. He dug a 2 metre deep hole in the backyard and using an abandoned satellite dish, hay bales and hunks of tree bark he created his own Medieval Mead Hall accessed via a tunnel.  He realised he needed something to keep him occupied, other that digging holes, this is when he started planning the Inheritance Cycle books.

Christopher signing books afterwards 

Christopher read favourite passages from each of the four books, briefly explaining why he liked them and then it was question time.  Earlier we'd heard that Eragon (the character) wasn't always called Eragon, at first he was going to be called Kevin!  During question time we found out that originally, when Eragon (the character)was called Kevin, Eragon (the book) was called Inheritance. We also discovered that he spends quite a lot of time online gaming - once he challenged someone who logged on as Eragon, unfortunately they were better than him and when he lost the game "You have been killed by Eragon" flashed across the screen.

My favourite Q & A was about where he got the idea for the Razak.  It turns out this idea came from the Potato Bug or Jerusalem Cricket found in Montana - Christopher described it as looking similar to the Weta found in New Zealand only smaller. One night he took a torch to investigate the horrible noise coming from another room in the house .... he discovered a huge ugly black monster - the larger than life silhouette of a Jerusalem Cricket that was sitting on the back of the couch!

New Zealand Tree Weta
Picture from here

Potato Bug or Jerusalem Cricket
Picture from here

These two bugs look pretty similar to me too.

You can find out more about Christopher Paolini here or you can watch him talk about the Inheritance Cycle books in an earlier blog post here.

P.S.  You can also read a recent interview with Christopher Paolini in Christchurch - here.

Derek Landy is coming to New Zealand

Thats right Derek Landy is visiting New Zealand and Australia later in the year.  If you'd like a chance to meet him while he's down this way then why not enter the End of the World Competition currently running on the Skulduggery Pleasant website. The competition closes on 30th April 2012 and the winner will be announced the following week.

Haven't heard about the Skulduggery Pleasant series of books before?  Then find out about it on my earlier Skulduggery Pleasant post.

I found out about this competition here and the picture is from there too.

Dinah Priestley Visit

Photo by Dinah Priestley

On Tuesday author/illustrator Dinah Priestley visited St Brendan's and spoke to our Juniors and Year 3 & 4 students.  She brought along a furry friend "Oscar" to help her out. Dinah read her book Oscar, Star of the Opera a picture book about a dog who becomes a famous opera singer. The idea for Oscar came from her own dog who had once burst into song while she was listening to Pavarotti - a very famous opera singer.  She explained that ideas for stories often came from things like this that happen in your everyday life.  Dinah shared her other stories too, including some that she is still working on, however it was Oscar who was the star of the show as children from each group were encouraged to put on the mask & costume and become Oscar, Star of the Opera while Pavarotti sang in the background.   

Note: Dinah made the Oscar mask herself too - isn't she clever?

Thank you so much for your visit Dinah, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Photo by Mrs Banks

Books we have in our library: Oscar, Star of the Opera and That's Not Cricket.

Dinah's visit was part of the New Zealand Book Council's Writers in Schools programme. You can find out more about Dinah and her books at the New Zealand Book Council website here.