The Alphabet

Here is a great short video of  The Alphabet.

It's along the lines of "A is for Apple, B is for Box ...." but it uses some considerably more complex words - and is very clever indeed.



I found out about this video here.

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "George's Dragon" by Claire FREEDMAN
• "Gypsy Day on the Farm" by Jennifer BECK

 Fiction:

• "Catmagic" by Holly WEBB (Animal Magic series)
• "Dirty Bertie : Germs!" created by David ROBERTS (Dirty Bertie series)
• "Pick'n'Mix Volume 2" by Various N.Z. Authors

Senior Fiction:

• "The 13 Secrets" by Michelle HARRISON (sequel to "The 13 Treasures" & "The 13 Curses")

Non-Fiction:

• "Spring" by Sian SMITH
• "The Dentist's Surgery" by Sue BARRACLOUGH

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "My Friend Fred" by Hiawyn ORAM
• "A Nice Walk in the Jungle" by Nan BODSWORTH

 Fiction:

• "Spacemite" by Ali SPARKES (Monster Makers series)
• "Out of this World" by Suzannah McFARLANE (EJ12 series)

Senior Fiction:

• "My Name is Mina" by David ALMOND

Junior Browsing:

• "Club Penguin : A Search-and-Find Book" 

Non-Fiction:

• "Changes in Animal Habitats" by            Steve PARKER
  
• "Flags of the World" by Julie Ellis

Inheritance Cycle - Interviews

Recently I discovered these short videos of Fan Question sessions with Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle series.  Less than two months too go now till the release of the final book in the series, Inheritance, due out in November.

I first found out about these interviews here.

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School"  by David MACKINTOSH
• "Piggity-Wiggity Jiggity Jig and the Camping Holiday" by Diana NEILD

 Fiction:

• "Magic Pony : Snow Bandits" by Elizabeth LINDSAY (Magic Pony series)
• "Tantrums and Tiaras" by Sarah HORNE (Molly & Mimi series)
• "Muncle Trogg" by Janet FOXLEY

Senior Fiction:

• "Taking the Chequered Flag" by Michael PANCKRIDGE & Pam HARVEY

Non-Fiction:

• "How to Improve at Playing the Piano"       by Lisa HARROD
  
• "Knights & Castles" by Phillip STEELE

The Cat's Pyjamas

Recently Clonard House students spent time during a reward fun afternoon helping to create the cat and his pyjamas from the picture book  The Cat's Pyjamas by Catherine Foreman.
In the book The Cat wears a different set of pyjamas to bed each night of the week and his dreams each night relate to the pyjamas he's wearing. When he wears his space pyjamas he dreams about space, when he wears his jungle pyjamas he dreams about the jungle and and so on until he wears his monster pyjamas.....
You can see all of the great collage versions of the cat and his pyjama's created by Clonard House on display in the Library now.

Here's a sneek peek at some of them:

A big thank you to Clonard House for all your wonderful work on these and thank you also to Mr Keegan who climbed the ladder to staple them all up on the library wall.

Cornelia Funke

Image via The Seattle Times

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

Cornelia Caroline Funke (pronounced: FOON-ka) was born  in Dorsten, Germany, on 10th December 1958, she has a sister and two brothers. As a child Cornelia wanted to be an astronaut but instead she studied education theory at Hamburg University and then went on to study book illustration at design college. She began a career as a book illustrator but soon realized that she wanted to write and illustrate her own stories.  During the 1980s and early 1990s, she became well-known as an author of children's books in her native Germany, with the Ghosthunters (Gespensterjäger) and Wild Chicks (Wild Hühner) series of books. But her international breakthrough came in 1997 when Dragonrider and later The Thief Lord (2000), both huge successes in  Germany,  were  published  in  English and  brought  her  writing  to  an international audience.

Cornelia is best known for the Inkheart trilogy (Inkheart, Inkspell and Inkdeath) the first book of the series has been adapted into a movie.  Cornelia has been writing for about 25 years and has written more than 40 books.  Some 18 of her books have so far been translated into English, and this number is set to increase.

Books by Cornelia Funke we have in our library:  Princess Pigsty - a Picture Book; and copies of  Igraine the Brave; When Santa Fell to Earth; Dragonrider;  Saving Mississippi and the four books in the Ghosthunters series in the Fiction section. Also Inkheart and The Thief Lord in the  Senior Fiction section.

Upper Hutt Library currently holds copies of 14 children's books and 4 teen books by Cornelia Funke and  one Teen DVD.

The above information about Cornelia Funke was adapted from here, here, here and here.

For more information about Cornelia Funke and her books you could visit the Cornelia Funke Fansite.

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "Don't Panic Annika!" by Juliet Clare BELL
• "Walking Through the Jungle" by Debbie HARTER

 Fiction:

• "Candyfloss" by Jacqueline WILSON
• "Dancing Dreams and other stories" by Emma THOMPSON & Helen BAILEY (Felicity Wishes series)
• "Rockataur" by Ali SPARKES (Monster Makers series)

Senior Fiction:

• "The Crowfield Demon" by Pat WALSH (sequel to "The Crowfield Curse")

Non-Fiction:

• "First Thousand Words in Polish" by Heather AMERY
  
• "New Zealand Hall of Fame : 50 Remarkable Kiwis" by Maria GILL

Favourite Harry Potter Character - And the Winners Are:

 According to the Harry Potter UK Book page and The Guardian the results are:

Professor Severus Snape         Photo source

Professor Severus Snape has been voted the number one character from the Harry Potter novels. Some 70,000 people voted in the Bloomsbury poll, and 20% of these agreed that

the Potions Master & Head of Slytherin is No.1!   

Hermione Granger came 2nd

and Sirius Black 3rd

Hermione Granger               Photo source



Sirius Black                          Photo source

 

 The Top Ten Characters were:

1. Severus Snape
2. Hermione Granger
3. Sirius Black
4. Harry Potter
5. Ron Weasley
6. Luna Lovegood
7. Ginny Weasley
8. Albus Dumbledore
9. Dobby
10. Draco Malfoy 

For a full list of all 40 characters and where they finished you can follow this link and scroll to the bottom of the page.

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "Milly Maloo and the Miracle Glue" by Melanie KOSTER
• "Say Hello to Zorro!" by Carter GOODRICH

 Fiction:

• "Battle of the Borders : Volcan" by Mac PARK (Boy vs Beast series)
• "Just One More" by Joy COWLEY
• "Ottoline goes to School" by Chris RIDDELL (Ottoline series)

Senior Fiction:

• "The Travelling Restaurant" by Barbara ELSE

Non-Fiction:

• "Art Attack - Even more Cool Stuff!" by Neil BUCHANAN
  
• "Yates Young Gardener : Get your hands dirty" by Janice MARRIOT

Favourite Harry Potter Character - Update

Less than two days to vote for your favourite Harry Potter character, so if you haven't already, VOTE NOW!

The Poll closes on 26th August  (which here in N.Z. might mean about midday on 27th August) and the results will be announced by Bloomsbury Publishers on Tuesday 30th August.  Results will be available here on our library blog as soon as I know they are available.

Two people have commented about who they voted for on my first blog post  about the favourite Harry Potter character, and they both voted for different characters, Hermione and Harry.  I can tell you I voted for someone else too, Professor Snape (I know, I know.... he is a bad guy most of the time but really he is one of the good guys, you just don't find that out till almost the end).

So.... if the official poll is as close as our comments indicate it could be very close indeed.

On the New Books Display this week

Picture Book:

• "Finklehopper Frog" by Irene LIVINGSTON
• "You Are What You Eat and Other Mealtime Hazards " by Serge BLOCH

 Fiction:

• "Deep Fear" by Debi GLIORI (Pure Dead series)
• "Star Surprise and other stories" by Emma THOMSON (Felicity Wishes series)
•  "Zac Power : Blockbuster" by H.I. LARRY (Zac Power series)

Senior Fiction:

• "Coraline : The Graphic Novel" written by Neil GAIMAN; adapted and illustrated by P. Craig RUSSELL

Non-Fiction:

• "Wonders of the World" by Philip STEELE
  
• "Changes in Food and Farming" by Steve PARKER

Book Fair 2011 Update and the Library will be open again SOON

St Brendan's Book Fair is over again for another year. A BIG Thank you to everyone who came along and supported our major library "fundraiser". The value of sales this year earned us almost 20 free new books for our library collection. A BIG Thank you also to the families who purchased "Red Dot" books for donation to the library - keep a look out for them in the library later this term, they will all have special Book Fair Donation book plates inside!

With all the snow here last week, and else where, the Book Fair cases and boxes were not able to be collected as expected last week. However they are due to be collected on Wednesday this week so the library should be back to normal again from about mid-morning on Wednesday.