Bookchat!

Book news and book award information is still centred on The Slap. Its latest award is the Victorian Premier’s Award, beating Breath, Pages and The Boat.  The judges cite its originality, energy and distinctive voice as setting it apart. All of these are available in the library for holiday reading- you have 3 weeks this time!  But something lighter might be Gerald Seymour, Traitor’s Kiss, a spy thriller.

Other holiday reading that might interest you is Foreign Babes in Beijing, a true account of an American girl who goes to China to work in public relations, and ends up as a TV soapie star.

In other book related news, you might like to catch the movie of Mao’s Last Dancer, due for release 30 Sept. Li Cunxin has worked with director Bruce Beresford to ensure  authenticity, and Principal ballet dancers from the Australian Ballet and the Birmingham Ballet act and perform. Check out this page for more details  and the movie trailer!

For those who enjoyed The Surgeon of Crowthorne, “The Man who made Lists, Love, Death,Madness, and the creation of Roget’s Thesaurus”  has also come through as a new book. Curious title!

Also, the  Fodor guide to France for 2009, for anyone lucky enough to be thinking about an overseas trip!

Pop in and see our new books display and teachers favourites – something might interest you!

Some websites to bookmark!

  The Biography Maker is a great starting site for the girls to establish criteria and format for their biographies in any discipline!

 The Encyclopedia of life is a site that covers all living things. It aims to” be an online reference and database on all 1.8 million species currently known to science and will stay current by capturing information on newly discovered and formally described species. The Encyclopedia of Life will help all of us better understand life on our planet.”

 Wikipedia schools selection has been organised along the lines of subjects in the UK curriculum. There are 5500 articles. It has information equal to the size of a 20 volume encyclopedia. Unlike the original Wikipedia articles were selected for quality and accuracy. A better option for your students.

Going overseas- want to brush up on your languages? Have a look at Live mocha!  Live mocha is a free online language learning site.

 Wilderdom  is a games site run by a Canberra psychologist James Neill. It includes games for ice breakers, games for team building, building trust etc. Click on the names of each activity to get the notes on how to set up and run the activities. 

Look at this fun site for generating newspaper clippings, either for you to use, or for your students! 

Find how  is an incredible site that tells you how to do just about anything! How to repair a car, how to do crafts, how to write a resume, there is maths help, homework help,  all aspects of life are covered. It does have an American bias but it is interesting nonetheless.

 

FOR AUGUST

Some non fiction to consider! An interesting little gem about Eucalyptus oil has been donated, with fascinating ideas about how to use it- did you know it can keep possums away?

There is also a book called Spotless, (Room by room solutions to domestic disasters) Spilt beer, permanent ink, mould on leather, it can solve all these problems and more!

Also, a book kindly donated to us by Jim, and written by Chris Patten (the last Governor of Hong Kong) drawing on all his experience as a diplomat and European Commisioner to ask the question, What next? Surviving the Twenty-first century.

In fiction, we have the new book by Miles Franklin author Steven Carroll, The Lost Life , and looking ahead to warmer weather, The Penguin Book of the Beach,  a collection of short stories edited by Robert Drewe.

           What’s new in books?

Some new books have arrived recently, a couple purchased after requests from students or staff. We will always consider any requests, so if there is something you are interested in, let us know!

For anyone who has read Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung’s new book, Growing up Asian in Australia has arrived. (Have you read The Boat, by Nam Le, another emerging and very impressive Asian/Australian author?)

Also two new biographies, John, by Cynthia Lennon, a review of which is here  (Did you know Paul McCartney wrote Hey Jude for Julian Lennon after his parent’s divorce? I didn’t!) and No turning back, Joanne Lees story about her journey into the outback with Peter Falconio and its aftermath.

E news

Something for English teachers, specifically teachers of Shakespeare,  is the UK ‘s Department for Children, Schools and Families  National Strategies website. They have curriculum documents for  Enjoying Shakespeare units of study, with Powerpoints and Smartboard files as well as units of drama linked to a study of the Globe Theatre.

I also came across the following items in an educational site from Britain called Inspired,  this one highlighting the possibilities of Second Life for educational purposes.

“There is a zone called Scilands where a variety of institutions including NASA have created virtual experiments and scientific experiences. Member organisations share borders of their individual regions in the hope of forging links between disciplines. One of the most compelling of the Scilands is that which enables the visitor to fly through a hurricane.”

 And some scary figures!-  “Gadget-rich childhood

Channel 4 have recently commissioned research into young people’s use and attitudes to technology. Among the eye-watering figures is the likelihood that your average 12-24 year-old will personally own eight devices including an MP3 player, PC, TV, DVD player, mobile phone, stereo, games console, and digital camera. And something to terrify TV executives is the finding that when watching the box the typical teenager will be doing at least five other things at the same time. “

I wonder how this applies to their reading and studying!

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s new?

 

E news

Have a look at Block posters. You can easily blow up your pictures for display here.

Something quite confronting in the environmental field, is this world map called Breathing Earth, depicting world carbon emissions, births, deaths etc as you watch. Definitely worth checking out!

Mathsplayground is a site that contains not just maths games but puzzles, videos and logic games. Probably mostly upper primary, but the games are fun and may engage some lower secondary students as well. Some algebra and geometry included too. Could be useful on an IWB.  Have a look!

 

Google are pushing  into newer territory all the time. They are finalising a message translation function (a newer version of Google Translate) that will be incorporated into Gmail. Expect automatic email translation into 41 languages! Interesting possibilities for our students to communicate with the world.

Hope some of these snippets are useful for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      10 June, 2009

Welcome to the first entry of our library page that will introduce you to library news, new books and links to  websites, in fact, anything useful we come across in the library will be posted here. Please feel free to comment about books and add sites that you have found in the comment section below!

At the moment we have new books on display in the library, you might like to start thinking about some holiday reading! A list of some of our new books can be found on the New Books Page.

One of my recent favourites is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. Set on the island of Guernsey during and after the Nazi occupation there was no flour so pies for Bookclub meetings were made with potato peel pastry! This book has been No 1on the New York Times bestseller list for the past 3 weeks.

On a different note, the Body at the Melbourne Club tells the story of Bertram Armytage, an adventurer and Antarctic explorer with Shackleton, who inexplicably shot himself dead at the exclusive  club.

New titles by Jodie Piccoult have arrived, Handle with care, and the Tenth Circle. The movie of My sister’s keeper, the story of a girl conceived to provide bone marrow for her dying sister, is due for release shortly and stars Cameron Diaz.

As for Web 2.0 , have you come across Wordle ? It is a website that creates word clouds from text you provide. (Example of a library sign at top of page) It has great possibilities for brainstorming, text responses etc. Have a look, it’s easy to use. The girls will love it!