On the New Books Display this Week

Picture Book:

• "Māui - Sun Catcher / Māui - Te Kāihao I Te Ra" by Tim TIPENE; illustrated by Zac WAIPARA
• "Īhaka and the Unexpected Visitor" by Kirsty WADSWORTH; illustrated by Zac WAIPARA

Fiction:

• "Daisy and the Trouble with Christmas" by Kes GRAY (Daisy series) 
• "Spaceboy" by David WALLIAMS
• "The Last Fallen Moon" by Gracie KIM (Gifted Clans series)
• "The Dragon Prince : Through the Moon" by Gracie KIM (The Dragon Princes series)

Non-fiction:

• "Language Around the World" by Gill BUDGELL
• "Match Attacx Annual 2023"

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.

Storylines Free Family Days 2014

Do you need something fun and free to do this weekend?

When:       Sunday, 24 August, 10am-3pm 

Where:      Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington.

For more information about the Wellington Family Day see HERE

For information about Family Day's in other parts of the country see HERE

Chris Riddell

Photo by Plad2 from HERE

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

Chris Riddell is an illustrator and author of children's books and a political cartoonist. He was born in 1962 in South Africa where his father was an Anglican priest, and moved with his family to England when he was aged one year.  Chris studied art and design and was later taught illustration by famous children's author/illustrator Raymond Briggs.

Chris is well known for his collaborations with Paul Stewart on Children's books such as Muddle Earth, Corby Flood and the Edge Chronicles. More recently he has written and illustrated the Ottoline books and Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse.

Chris has won numerous awards including the Nestle Gold Award and two Kate Greenaway Medals.

Currently we have 6 books written (or partly written) and illustrated by Chris Riddell in the Fiction section of our library and Wendel's Workshop in the Picture book section. We also have a number of other books illustrated by Chris Riddell.

Upper Hutt Library currently holds copies of about 8 children's books by Chris Riddell.

The above information about Chris Riddell was adapted from HERE, HERE and HERE. You can find out more about Chris, his books and other stuff  HERE too.     

  

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.

The Famous Five

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

The Famous Five is one of several popular series of books written by Enid Blyton. There are 21 original Famous Five books which were written between 1942 and 1963. The books are about the many adventures of four children; Julian, Dick, Anne and Georgina (known as George) and their dog Timmy.

"Armed with maps, torches, packets of sandwiches and a plentiful supply of ginger-beer, Julian, Dick, Anne, their tomboy cousin George (Georgina by rights) and Timmy the dog like nothing better than to spend their holidays hiking and biking, camping and exploring by themselves, invariably falling into adventure."

This year is the 70th Anniversary of the Famous Five books and to help celebrate the publishers, Hodder Children's Books, asked five famous illustrators to design new covers for the first five books in the series.

Image from LibraryMice.com HERE

Currently we have 2 books from the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton in the Fiction section of our library. Next term look out for the other three 70th Anniversary Edition titles on the New Books display to add to our collection.

Upper Hutt Library currently holds copies of about 20 Famous Five books by Enid Blyton as well as 2 audio books.

The above information about the Famous Five was adapted from here and here.  If you'd like to find out more about Enid Blyton and her books you can find more here.

Quentin Blake & Roald Dahl - Holiday Boredom Busters

The holidays are almost half over already, if you've been a bit bored lately below is a great video of illustrator Quentin Blake who was involved recently in an interactive live webcast. Quentin Blake had a long association with Roald Dahl, illustrating his books, and as you can see in the video he had a lot of fun while he was working on them.

For more Roald Dahl fun you can visit the Official Roald Dahl website here and go to the Treats page to find some fun activities.

For more Holiday Boredom Busters click on the Boredom Busters label at the bottom of this post.

Lauren Child

Image from Little London Magazine HERE

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

Lauren Child was born in 1967 and grew up in Wiltshire, the middle child of three sisters and the daughter of teachers. Her first creative act was to change her name from Helen to Lauren when she was a child - "I just didn't like my name very much, I didn't dislike the name itself, I just didn't like me being called it."

Lauren studied Art at Manchester Polytechnic and London Art School, after wards she worked in a variety of jobs. She also started her own company making exotic lampshades. The turning point came after talking to a business manager who suggested she should write a children's book and design a product range around it.  The result was Clarice Bean. 

Her first book Clarice Bean, That’s Me, was published in 1999, and was the first of many books about this character. It took her five years to get it published, after many rejections, but after publication it was highly praised and shortlisted for the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. Although Clarice Bean started life as a picture-book character, Lauren has now written several novels about her adventures too.  Alongside the Clarice Bean series, Lauren Child also began another series of picture books in 2000, about a brother and sister called Charlie and Lola. This series, which began with the award-winning I Will Not Ever, NEVER Eat A Tomato, has proved even more popular than Clarice Bean.

Lauren Child is also an illustrator, her humorous illustrations contain several mediums including magazine cuttings, collage, material, photography and watercolour. As well as illustrating her own books Lauren has also illustrated books by other author's.

Lauren has won a number of prizes and awards for books in the Clarice Bean and the Charlie and Lola series as well as several of her stand alone titles.

Books by Lauren Child we have in our library: Goldilocks and the Three Bears - a Picture Book, and copies of Utterly Me, Clarice Bean; Clarice Bean Spells Trouble and Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now in the Fiction section. 

Upper Hutt Library currently holds copies of 40 children's books by Lauren Child and three Children's DVDs.

Most of the above information about Lauren Child was adapted from here, here, and here.

For more information about Lauren Child and her books visit the Official Lauren Child website.

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.

Asterix

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

The Asterix books are a popular series of comic books which follow the exploits of a village of ancient Gauls as they resist Roman occupation.  Asterix, along with his friend Obelix have many adventures, some in and around their village but other stories see them traveling to various countries around the world.

Asterix,  written by  Rene Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo, began as a comic strip in the first issue of the french magazine Pilote in 1959.  The first Asterix book Asterix the Gaul was published in 1961, followed by one or two books each year until 1976.  In 1977 Rene Goscinny died suddenly and from then on Albert Uderzo continued the adventures of Asterix alone.  Currently there are 34 Asterix books (you can see them all here) the last was published in 2009 to celebrate Asterix and Obelix's 50th Birthday.   

We have a number of Asterix titles available for borrowing in the Mature Picture books, also a compendium with three stories in the Fiction section.  Upper Hutt Public Library has many Asterix books available in the Comics section, and a movie in the Children's DVD section.

You can find out more about Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo here.

The above information has been adapted from here and here.