Some great books to read

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
This is an awesome senior fantasy story with an equally awesome sequel called "Days of blood and starlight". Karou is studying art in Prague and is being plagued by her ex boyfriend. Lots of normal independant teenage stuff is going on, but Karou has a secret life behind a door in the city where she works for Brimstone gathering teeth from all around the world. What are the teeth for? Why has she got an obsession with angels and flying? Why does this obsession make Brimstone, who is like a father to Karou, very angry? The answers to some of these questions are revealed when Karou takes a trip to Marrakesh on a quest for more teeth. This is a must read for anyone who likes the idea of star crossed lovers and parallel worlds.

For something realistic
Never fall down : a novel by Patricia McCormick

It's been a while since I've read about Cambodia and this one didn't really tell me anything new, but if you haven't read about the Pol Pot era in Cambodia, this is a good book for you. Based on a true story it is about Arn and how he survived these horrific years. I was interested in how difficult it was for him to adapt to his new safe life and to live with himself after what he'd done to survive.

Library Week and Reading Challenge update

Library Week

Mystery Books This was a great success. 70 books were issued to students and 22 to staff members. Keep handing in the feedback forms so you can go into the draw for a prize.










Author visit - Kate De Goldi What an awesome inspiration she was to the students who were able to see her!










First line of a novel competition We had 34 entries from students and 11 entries from staff members. The winning entry for the students was from a year nine student! Congratulations to Bonny Wedgwood. Her entry read:
It's really hard being the son of an alpha; in fact hard doesn't even scratch the paint work.
There were two winners in the staff catagory. Congratulations to Mr Dye for this gem:
Miriam lovingly named all the flies on the window-sill after children in her class, then vacuumed them!
and Ms Dashfield-Speight for this one:
She'd carefully stashed the time away, minute by stolen minute, and now she was ready to use it all up in one glorious hour.
All entries are on display in the library.

Annual Library Quiz We had a lot of fun and the winning team was Phoenix Court made up of : Anthony Jones, Dorian McAdam, Dhayne Turksma and Fraser Haxton.

August Reading Challenge
Results as at 20 August
Remutuka 41
Te Awakairangi 40
Orongomai 36
Tokomaru 28
You still have until the end of next week so get reading and don't forget to let us know when you've finished your books!

 

Library Week

Events

August Reading Challenge House Competition
For every book that you read in August your House will get one point. Plus we will give out a prize for the person who reads the most books. Check in with the librarian when you finish your books to get your points.

Kate De Goldi - Author visit
We are lucky to be able to have Kate visit our school to talk to all the year 11s and some year 12s on Tuesday 13 August. This is sponsored by The New Zealand Book Council Writers in Schools Programme.

Library quiz
Will be held on Thursday 15 August at 11am. Just turn up to take part. We might have to limit numbers on the day. You can eat your lunch in the library on that day plus we will have some snacks available.

Mystery Boook
We will have some really good books all wrapped up in brown paper for you to borrow for the week. You won't know what the book is until you unwrap it. So challenge yourself to read something you might not otherwise chose. There will be feedback forms in the books for you to fill in and completed forms will go into a draw for a prize.

First line of a novel competition
Get your thinking cap on and write the most awesome first line of a novel and we will judge the best one for a prize. The beauty of this is that you don't even have to write the whole novel.

What to read and how to choose?

This is always a problem when using the library. If you don't know what to read next, have a look at our path finder bookmarks near the issues desk. We have the following lists :
Dystopian Fiction - books like The hunger games set in a future world where life is often a struggle.
Paranormal romance - books like Twilight. They can have angels, vampires etc and there's a love interst.
Fantasy - books like Harry Potter with magic or fantastical creatures in them.
Chic Lit - books like Jacqueline Wilson with stories for girls that are light although they sometimes deal with issues.
Adventure spy stories - books like Anthony Horowitz "Stormbreaker"
Horror stories
Courage in adversity - books like A Child Called It both fiction and non-fiction.
Supernatural stories - stories with ghosts, but not the romance ones on this list.
Murder mysteries

There are some great websites that you can use too.

http://www.goodreads.com/
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/
http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/
http://www.literature-map.com/
http://bookseer.com/
http://www.insideadog.com.au/

Then there's the school's OPAC which you can access from inside the school and from home. See the site links in the Heretaunga Intranet site. There are reading lists on the OPAC or you can do subject searches. Or you can look at the new items.

Personal recommendations are another really good way of finding good books. Talk to your friends about what they are reading and enjoying. Ask your teachers and the librarian for recommendations.

Then you've finally got a book in your hand, but how can you tell if you're going to like it? We do all have different tastes. So read the blurb. Then read the first page. If you're hooked then that's easy carry on reading. If you're still not sure then give it a few more pages, but if after the first couple of chapters you are really not enjoying it then try another one.

Happy reading everyone

New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards

These are the titles that we have in our school library this year.

Earth Dragon, Fire Hare by Ken Catran

Into the River by Ted Dawe

The Nature of Ash by Mandy Hager

Reach by Hugh Brown

Snakes and Ladders by Mary-Anne Scott

My Brother's War by David Hill

Red Rocks by Rachel King

You can vote for your favourite by picking up a voting form from the library or go to http://booksellers.co.nz/%5Bbooksellers-category%5D/%5Bbooksellers-category-lvl2%5D/vote-childrens-choice-award-2013

Come and have a look at the display in the library and watch the slide show of the books.

Iron Man 3 3D movie night

The Home and School Association is running a screening of Iron Man 3 in 3D at the Ascot Theatre on Sunday 28 April 6pm to raise funds to upgrade the library computers. Tickets cost $15 for students and $20 for adults and include a goodie bag and 3D glasses. Watch the trailer..........

Hurry up and buy your tickets.

We have several Iron Man graphic novels in the library to inspire you to watch the movie.

Busy start to the year

It's week six and I've just realised that I haven't updated the blog!

So here goes - what have we done this year so far?

Well we've had Learning to Learn with the year nines where they all learnt how we do research at Heretaunga College.

We've had several groups of new international students orientated in the library.

We've been collating and analysing our Summer Reading programme data. On this topic just so's you know we had 47 students take part in our Summer Reading and 258 books were loaned out.  Kayla Braybrook made the most blog entries and won the book voucher. We found that some of you didn't know that there was a link to this blog from the school's Intranet and therefore couldn't find the blog.

We've been buying lots of new books. See the new books page for some examples.

Year 13s are busy with Biology, Economics and Music research and I've helped many of you with access to EPIC. I'm happy to help anyone who's missed out.

New Zealand Book month is under way and the $5 book vouchers are available in the library if you want one.