CBCA Children’s Book of the Year Awards 2015.

The shortlists for this year’s CBCA Book of the Year awards were recently announced.  There are 6 books in each category, with the categories being: Older Readers, Younger Readers, Early Childhood, Picture Book of the Year, Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and the Crichton Award for new illustrators. The winners are announce the Friday 21 August, before the official launch of Book Week.  The shortlisted books are chosen for particular criteria focusing on their literary merit. In the Younger Readers section, which is ideal for primary aged children from about grades 3 – 6, there are some really good reads. In the Early Childhood section there are some delightful picture books which children of all ages would enjoy.   My particular favourite is Pig the Pug by Aaron Blabey but I also enjoyed Stephen Michael King’s Snail and Turtle are Friends.  

In the Picture Book of the Year section there often one or two picture books that are more suitable for mature readers and this year is no exception.   For example, One Minute’s Silence is quite  graphic and confronting in its retelling of events in  World War 1 but it is an outstanding picture book.   My Two Blankets  is a beautifully crafted picture book about a young girl who leaves her war-ravaged homeland and arrives in Australia. It conveys how she is  faced with the challenges of fitting into a new land where everything is different to her home.  If you are interested in sharing books from this category with your child ,I would recommend you have a read of them first.

We will have to wait until August to find out who the winders are. In the meantime, keep an eye out for these books and see what you think. The shortlist can be accessed by clicking on the following link: http://cbca.org.au then selecting Book of the Year.

ANZAC AND WORLD WAR 1 STORIES

Australian authors and illustrators have been very busy over the last year or so creating many outstanding books to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ANZACS landing at Gallipoli. We have several in our library, most of which are aimed at older students, purely due to the content of the material.

In particular many picture books have been created to help children understand the events of the time and their impact on Australia's history. Many of them are quite sad and sometimes confronting  and while they are picture books, they are better suited to older students. However, many are outstanding in the way they communicate the significance of what happened before, during and after the events at Gallipoli both in the words and illustrations.   
Here are some of the picture books and novels books we have about ANZAC day and World War 1.

Picture books:
The beach they called Gallipoli     Jackie French          A day to remember      Jackie French
Simpson and his donkey  Mark Greenwood               One minute's silence David Metzenthen
Meet the Anzacs  Claire Saxby                                                 Anzac biscuits Phil Cummings
The house that was built in a day Valerie Everett                              The poppy Andrew Plant
My grandad marches on Anzac Day   Catriona Hoy      In Flanders fields   Norman Jorgensen
Do not forget Australia   Sally Murphy                           I was only nineteen   John Schumann    
The soldier's gift Tony Palmer                                             
The horse soldier  Mark Wilson   There are several outstanding picture books in this series by Mark Wilson. The local library is sure to have them. 

 

 

              

Novels:
1915    Sally Murphy             Scarecrow army: the Anzacs at Gallipoli Leon Davidson
Jimmy's war 1915     Sherryl Clark           Caesar the ANZAC dog         Patricia Stroud
The Lighthorse Boy Dianne Wolfer       Our Australian girl : Alice's story Davina Bell 
Zero hour: the Anzcas on the Western Front     Leon Davidson
Loyal creatures      Morris Gleitzman

 

Children's Book Festival 2015

Once again, the State Library of Victoria in Swanston Street and The Wheeler Centre in Little Lonsdale Street are hosting the Children's Book Festival on Sunday 22 March. This is a fabulous family event with many free fun activities and the chance to meet some of our most popular authors and illustrators. It is also a fantastic opportunity to go into the historic and beautiful State Library. I went to the Festival last year and posted some photos on this blog so if you want to know a bit more about the Festival take a look at my blog from March last year.  I highly recommend the event for all of our families. Click on the link below to access the website which will also lead you to details of the full program and what is on offer during the day.


http://www.wheelercentre.com/events/children-s-book-festival-2015

See you at the Festival!

Read the book.... watch the show.....

Welcome back to our Library Blog. I hope you all managed to find time for some relaxing over the holidays. I am sure many of you went to the movies over the holidays, perhaps to see Paddington or Paper Planes or catch up with The Maze Runner. These are 3 examples of book and movie tie-ins. Paddington of course is an old classic story published first in 1958 and written by Michael Bond and The Maze Runner was published in 2009 and written by James Dashner. Paper Planes is somewhat different as the book was written after the movie, so it is actually an adaptation of the screen version by Steve Worland!  Paper Planes and The Maze Runner are both available for borrowing from our library and I am waiting on a current release of Paddington to add to our collection. Many students are actually surprised to find their favourite movies started as a book.

So what other book movie tie-ins do we have in our library. here's a list to help if you are trying to find something to read...

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief                  Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters                 Rick Riordan
Tomorrow When the War Began                  John Marsden
Mao's Last Dancer - (abridged for younger readers)                Li Cunxin
Nim's Island                         Wendy Orr
Diary of a Wimpy Kid                 Jeff Kinney
The Hunger Games trilogy            Suzanne Collins
The Hobbit     Tolkien
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory           Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach                       Roald Dahl
Matilda                                                  Roald Dahl
Misery guts                                          Morris Gleitzman
How to Train Your Dragon                 Cressida Cowell
Holes                                                    Louis Sacher
Stormbreaker                                  Anthony Horowitz
Tintin                               Herge
A Series of Unfortunate Events         Lemony Snicket
and of course Harry Potter.     J. K. Rowling

We also have a few books that are television/DVD and book tie-ins including...
Extreme Adventures     Justin D'ath
Old Tom  laugh Hobbs
Conspiracy 365 series   Gabrielle Lord
Paul Jennings Un-series of short stories which were televised as Round the Twist.   Paul Jennings
Pearlie              Wendy Harmer
Charlie and Lola          Lauren Child
Hairy Maclary From Donaldson's Dairy             Lynley Dodd

So if you are looking for something to read why not read the book and watch the show!

Books and Youtube

 

 

Are you interested in finding out how Jeff Kinney draws his characters from his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series? Well, you could learn how to draw his characters on the Jeff Kinney's Cartoon Class video series from Penguin Kid's TV on YouTube.  There's actually a Wimpy Kid channel that has EVERYTHING you would want to know about Jeff, the books, the characters...




Would you like to hear the very funny and popular author (and actor) David Walliams read from his book Gangsta Granny .........?

 Or maybe you would like to hear Jacqueline Harvey talk about Alice-Miranda... watch here...

Would you like to see and hear how illustrator Alison Lester starts to make books? Watch here...

What about Captain Underpants? The author of these funny books, Dave Pilkey also has his own Youtube channel which has everything you could possibly want to see or hear about these popular books.  Watch one of his book trailers here...

Do you want to find out about new books? Well you can watch a Book Trailer about Sally Rippin's new book Angel Creek on her own YouTube channel.

There are so many book related videos on YouTube that entertaining to watch. You can see and hear authors and illustrators talking about their books, how they write or illustrate their books or you can watch book trailers to find out about new books that you might like to read. All you need to do is to type in the name of your favourite authors or illustrators, type in the name of a publisher or type in children's book trailers. You probably need to check if the book trailer was made by a publisher or just a person who created a book trailer for fun.  You can see interviews with your favourite authors and illustrators or even watch them as they draw. You could even create your own book trailer for a favourite book or film a review of a favourite book and post it on YouTube! take a look...
Denise Pilinis

Waiting for  A Wimpy Kid..
I would have to say that the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Tom Gates  and Dork Diaries are two of the most popular series in the library. The books are popular with both boys and girls - children who love to read as well as the "But I can't find any books I like" readers. The next Wimpy Kid book, The Long Haul  will be in the library soon and there's no word as yet about the next Tom Gates or Dork Diaries. So, what can our children read in the meantime and while they are waiting for the book to be on the shelf? Well there's a few other choices which may keep all our children happy!

As far as series go there's...
Big Nate by Lincoln Pierce, The Loser List by H. N. Kowitt, Red Dirt Diaries by Katrina Nanstead, Stuff Happens by various authors, The World of Norm by Jonathan Meres, Weirdo 1, 2 and 3 by Ahn Do,  Nerds by Michael Buckley, Starring Jules by Beth Ain, Jeremy Strong by Jeremy Strong, The Floods by Colin Thompson, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (and others) by Tom Angleberger A series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket, How to train your dragon by Cressida Cowell, Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow, Eric Vale by Michael Gerard Bauer,  My sister the vampire by Sienna Mercer, Middle School by James Patterson, and Treasure Hunters by James Patterson.

These are just a few suggestions for other popular series in  our library. I am always more than happy to help our students out with their book choices. All they need to do is pop in to see me on the library and I will try my best to help them find something to read.
Denise Pilinis
Library technician