Jim’s letters by Glyn Harper and illustrated by Jenny Cooper

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Jim’s letters is one of those books that hits with emotional impact.

Brothers Tom and Jim write to each other between December 1914 and August 1915. Jim writes from the trenches of the Gallipoli peninsula while younger brother Tom writes from the farm.

This is a beautifully illustrated book with letters to open and read. It lets us know just how hard life was during the First World War.

We read about Jim’s struggles in the trenches, and how Tom misses his big brother in this very moving story of life during times of strife and war.

It is a wonderful example of  dream maker as the illustrator Jenny Cooper is an ex pupil of Fendalton School.

I was lucky enough to meet both author and illustrator and they very kindly signed our school copy of the book. Do come in and look at this beautiful book. It will be available next week for issuing.

The author and illustrator have worked together before on another book about the war.

Le Quesnoy is a book about a  town in northern France.  In World War I the German army invaded the town and occupied it for four  years. In November 1918 the town was liberated by soldiers from far-away New Zealand.It wasn’t until November 1918 that the town was liberated with the help of New Zealand soldiers. They did this without any lives being lost which was an extraordinary thing to achieve at that time. This is  just as stunning as Jim’s letters. We do have this book as well, of course.

 

 

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Jenny Cooper and Glyn Harper at the Children’s Bookshop, Christchurch10th May 2014

 

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Look who has been reading!

The library has been a very busy place this term. Next term will be even busier as we look forward to  all the fun and activities that go with book week. Here are some photos of just some of the people caught reading in our library.

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Bennett enjoying a cuddle and a story with his dad; Andy. Never too young to read!

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Lucky children from Room 1 sharing  story time with our wonderful caretaker

 

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Lovely to see our students reading and sharing stories with the  Yuri Gakuin Elemenatry students from Japan.

 

 

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Junior classes working on the sea

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The junior classes have been looking at the sea and all the wonderful creatures that live in the sea.

The library  has some wonderful shells and even a seahorse on display.

And with almost all of our displays, we have some new books on the subject as well.

This is where once again I must thank the PTA for all their hard work fund-raising for the school.

It is their efforts which provide the funds for our new books. It is always so nice to support classroom learning with

books on the topics being studied. Why not have a go at these games below and have fun checking out the National Geographic site for kids, especially the ocean

 

Great turtle race

Frog flicker

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Dyslexia Awareness week

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Many of you may know that this week is dyslexia advocacy week.

The display in the library this week highlights some of the issues.

It also shows you how we are supporting children with dyslexia within the school.

There are a number of children’s novels and short chapter books published with support mechanisms.

These include buff and yellowish pages, large plain text with spaces between paragraphs to help with eye-tracking. These are on display and can be borrowed from next week.

For more information you can  visit the Dyslexia Foundation. 

Or you may wish to pop in and make a time to chat with Sandra Howat.

A quote I came upon just this week from Jackie French, novelist and the current Australian Children’s Laureate is very apt and highlights how we  must all be part of the solution in finding ways to support our children. We just need to work together.

“There are many reasons why a child cannot read. There are no excuses”.

 Magpies Volume 29, Issue No. 1, March 2014

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School book launch for Canterbury Quake story

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This Friday at 3pm we will be having our own book launch for the new book My New Zealand Story : Canterbury Quake  Christchurch 2010-2011

It is the latest book in the  My New Zealand Story  series, written in diary format and written by Desna Wallace.

It is the tale of 10 year old Maddy.

“Anyone would think Maddy’s world had crumbled when she didn’t get a cell phone for her eleventh birthday. But Maddy soon has far more important things to worry about. In the dark of night, with a terrifying rumble and a deafening roar, the world turns upside down! Suddenly, words like ‘liquefaction’, ‘aftershocks’ and ‘state of emergency’ bubble to the surface of her vocabulary.

As Maddy navigates the bumps and crashes of life after the big quakes, she discovers how strong family ties can be, and finds friendship in the most unlikely of places.”

This book will be available on Friday for $20 with profits going to the purchase of new library books.

You can get an order form from the library and pay in advance or pay on the day.

And yes – the author is me – your librarian.

Come and see me on Friday and I will sign your books for you.

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Welcome back to a wonderful new year

Welcome back  to school everyone.

It is going to be a wonderful year with lots of things happening.

I hope you all had fantastic holidays and are excited about your classes and all the fantastic things you will be doing this year.

There will be new books in the library to explore and read. Come and tell me what books you read during the holidays.

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Dr Who and friends visit Fendalton Open-Air School at lunch time

It was a great time shared by all at lunch time yesterday when Dr Who, a Star Fleet Officer, and a Cyborg, all turned up for a visit to our school.

The costumes were amazing and the children loved  following the Cyborg, or chasing the young Doctor through the playground. The visitors had read about our Tardis in The Press and wanted to come for a special visit so of course we said , Yes! Thank you so much for for making lunch time so special.

 

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Matty and the Doctor  

 

 

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Just for Christmas

Two great Christmas books we have in the library are The Snowman by Raymond Briggs and a sequel The Snowman and the Snowdog.

Watch the trailers and read the books. There are plenty of Christmas stories to read next to the Christmas display in the library.

 

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And the winner is…

The Doctor Who Tardis has been the talk of the school (and the Press newspaper). Students have been reading the new Doctor Who books and talking about where they would like to time travel too if they had the chance. We made this into a competition with the winner taking away a toy Dalek.

Mr Walker, who made our Tardis chose Amelie as the winner for her choice.

“I would like to go forward into the future to when the book teleporter is invented. (A book teleporter is where you can step into an amazing book and stay in that location as long as you want”.

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Amelie

There were so many ideas. Lots of children wanted to go back in time to the dinosaurs. Some wanted to go back to the war and stop it from happening while some wanted to go back to war just to ride the tanks! One child wanted to go back so he could see his parents as children. So many wonderful ideas.

 

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The Doctor Who tardis has landed at Fendalton School

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Doctor Who celebrates 50 years of  death defying adventures. There are many fans at school (both students and staff) who have come in to the library and been blown away by the Tardis. Yes – the Tardis has landed in the library. Do come in and take a look at our display. Once again Mr. Walker the assistant caretaker, has been busy for months making the Tardis. It has flashing lights and sound. It does not have any weeping angels – I can guarantee that as they scare me silly and I would be too afraid to work in the library.   (Plus we do not want the younger children to be frightened)

There are also a number of new Doctor Who books in the library.There is a competition to try and win your own dalek. Just write in a sentence or two, where you would like to travel in time. Do you have a place you would like to visit again? Or perhaps go back and meet the dinosaurs? Or do you want to travel in to the future?

 

 

 

 

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How to read on a warm spring day

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Room 12 took their library time outside the library yesterday. They issued their books and enjoyed time reading them under the cherry trees outside the library. It really was lovely to see them engrossed in their books but enjoying a bit of sunshine too.

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Captain Underpants and the crowd goes wild

We had a wonderful Captain Underpants lunch time party on Wednesday. For many of the children Captain Underpants books are their favourite books to read.

So we had some competitions and prizes and heaps of give-aways.  The winners of the colouring competitions, were;

First = Isla G 

Second = Emily O

Third = Will R

Well done to you all.

  Children got involved making their own capes and wearing very strange underwear on top of their school uniform. Even Mr Sibson and Mr Cuttle joined in the fun.

We also had a game to see who could throw their underwear the farthest.  Very hard to tell with underwear flying everywhere.

Then to top it all off we had a flash mob of children dancing “gangnam style”. A fun lunch time and now everyone wants to read all the books. They are now all out on issue so you will have to come and see me to reserve them.

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Brand new iPad in the library

A very huge thank you to the PTA who have all worked so hard at fundraising to provide the library with a brand new iPad. Our first!

 Rachel and Becky are checking out a Winnie the Pooh story on the iPad. Love the green carry case as it matches the rest of the library. Over the next few weeks I will be adding Apps to it to read and enjoy books. There will be QR codes set up to take you to some interesting book reviews too so do come and see our new iPad.

Rachel and Becky

 

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After the storm FOS sudents clear up

FOS Student  Army

What a night! Canterbury was almost blown away with very strong winds last night. Parts of Christchurch are still without power after last night’s stormy weather. Winds blew down trees and fences across the city. The winds kept people awake and lightning lit up the night sky.

Wow – we have our own FOS Student Army!  It was wonderful to see so many students picking up rakes and helping rake up broken branches and leaves in the school grounds. Wonderful team players. Here they are out on the tennis courts outside the library.

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Back the bull mufti day at school today

What a morning. All the children were dressed in the great Canterbury colours of red and black for our mufti day to help raise money to bring Back the Bull

The  bronze bull  called Chapman’s Homer stood on top of a piano last year in the earthquake rubble on Madras Street? It stopped traffic! Thousands of people got out to take photos and admire the work of  Michael Parekowhai. The bull is a wonderful symbol of the strength and resilience of the people of Christchurch over the last three years.

The people of Christchurch want to raise to raise $200,000 to buy Chapman’s Homer  where it will take pride of place outside the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Bondy from the radio station 92 Morefm came out to visit us to see just how we were supporting the event. He came and had a chat with Room 1 in the library before going out to meet all the children at school.  Rosa, Hannah and Charlie presented him with $635 to donate towards the Bull. Well done to all the children here at school. What a fantastic effort! Then the girls and boys from the Kapa Haka group performed for him. What a great performance.

 

Bondy and kids

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Book of the week this week is stunning

Goth girl and the ghost of a mouse

By Chris Riddell

This is one for the girls.

This is absolutely gorgeous. It is a beautifully produced hardback aimed at those girls who first fell in love with Chris Riddell’s Ottoline books.
The edges are a shiny purple to match the cover. The end pages are shiny black with silver leaves and skulls. There is a black ribbon bookmark. There is also a delightfully small colour booklet in a pocket attached to the inside back cover.  I had just bought the book for school and it was on my desk for processing and the girls were all begging to reserve it.

Ada Goth is the only child of Lord Goth. They  live  in the enormous Ghastly-Gorm Hall. Lord Goth believes very strongly that children should be heard and not seen. He doesn’t like surprises of children creeping up on him  so Ada has to wear large clumpy boots so that he can always hear her coming. Her only friend is Ishmael, a ghost mouse. All sorts of adventures begin to happen when Emily and William Cabbage arrive.  This is simply a wonderfully funny book with the most gorgeous illustrations. It is book of the week if not book of the year.

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Poetry in the library

Last week was poetry week. The extension writers had a chance to enjoy a workshop in the library with poet Paula Green. Watching the children coming up with new and creative ways to write poetry was wonderful. We have some very creative children here at Fendalton School.

Paula Green runs a wonderful blog where children can submit their own poems and read lots of other poems by children from all over New Zealand.

Check out her blog here at Poetrybox

We also enjoyed a visit from poet Greg O’Connell who performed a number of his poems for the children in the library at lunch on Friday.

He had the kids acting out as robots for one poem. For another, the children created the sound effects of witches and ghosts and other horrible creatures. They loved it! Hunter and Jonathan were the lucky winners of the drawings Greg drew surrounded by children giving him their ideas of what monsters looked like. A very noisy but wonderful lunchtime.

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Storylines Festival this Sunday 11th August

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The Storylines Festival is happening this Sunday at the South Christchurch Library on Colombo Street in Beckenham from 10am to 3pm.

Heaps of things to do and heaps of writers and illustrators will be talking about their books.

Here are just a few of the writers at the festival; Kyle Mewburn and Rachael King.   I was thrilled to see Rachael King won the LIANZA Junior Fiction award last night for her book Red Rocks.

From Australia we have Isobelle Carmody and Rachel Spratt. Rachel writes the Nanny Piggins books that so many of you have borrowed from our library.

You can check here for more details about the events, times and the competitions you can enter. I know I will be going so hopefully I will see some of you there.

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