Christmas Update
A very busy half term with the children obsessively learning poems off by heart! The library has been overflowing with competitive poetry, which has been great fun. In the end the winners learned 55 poems each: 137 children learned at least one poem off by heart; and 66 children learned more than three poems! All very impressive, and not a little humbling. Maybe have a family challenge to learn a Christmas poem each? ( Rewards help, but it is a strangely addictive pastime).
Dark evenings and wet mornings are perfect times to settle down with a good book. Please encourage your children to read with, to or alongside you over the holidays. In this edition, we have a couple of reviews from children, and some suggestions from me. Have a very happy holiday season!
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis
There is no better time to read this book, or see the film, than at Christmas, as the idea of always having winter but never Christmas strikes a particularly loud chord during the festive season! This wonderful tale of Lucy’s inadvertent discovery of Narnia through the back of a wardrobe is timeless, and with relatively short chapters it is perfect to read to children too young to manage on their own.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Everyone is familiar with the story of Scrooge from the various adaptations for television and film, but it is unbeatable in its original form. Adults are often wary of the classics on their children’s behalf in my experience, but once children have accommodated to the more complex sentence structures there is nothing quite like Dickens’ descriptions, and the characters are hugely memorable. This is another wonderful story to read to your children if you are worried that they might not embrace it otherwise.
Big Nate – the Boy with the Biggest Head in the World
Something totally different: this series is adored by anyone who enjoys the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Very much in the same vein, a mixture of cartoons and text, so accessible for a whole range of readers, these are funny, disrespectful books, which have children in the library snorting with laughter.
The Rabbit by Mary Arrigan
Not particularly festive, but I have just finished reading this lovely book set before the war and in Mallie’s present day. Mallie buys her Mum a picture of a rabbit from a junk shop and her Mum is reminded of something in her past: Tony and Alice are evacuated from London to the Lake District during the war and become firm friends with an elderly lady: are the two stories connected? This is a really interesting story about the lives of evacuees, as well as the challenges of living in a single parent family, with a great unpredictable twist in the tail.
Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
Finally the fourth volume of the Eragon series has been released and it has been worth waiting for. This fantasy series revolving around a young poor boy finding a dragon’s egg is compelling reading and has the kind of sweep of Lord of the Rings with the accessibility of Harry Potter. The first volume is called Eragon if you are just starting out: the parlous film did no justice whatsoever to the book, so don’t be put off!
Recommended by Robert, Year 5
Time Riders by Alex Scarrow
If you like adventure stories, then Time Riders is the book for you. In the book, there are three characters who should have died but seconds before a man called Foster held out his hand for them to be teleported forward and back in time to New York 2001. The three children are Liam O’Connor, who should have died on the Titanic in 1912, Maddy Carter, who should have died on a plane in 2010, and Sal Vikam, who should have died in a fire in 2026. But they’ve all been given a second chance and they now work for a secret agency. The job of the agency is to prevent time travel. When somebody alters history, the team feels a shift as everything in the world around them changes and then they have to go and find out what has happened to change the flow of time and fix it. This is the first book of a series of Time Rider books.
Librarian’s note:
I have enjoyed these books immensely, great for children who like serious adventures,with brilliant characters and a great insight into history, without feeling as if you are learning anything. A general age guide for good readers is Year 5 up. Boys who are hooked on Muchamore will like these, and the books are much better written.
Our Kindle recommended by Jack, Year 6
The Library’s new kindle is a brilliant idea. There are so many amazing books you can download onto it. I personally think we should get more for the school! The screen is really good, because it doesn’t shine in your eyes like an ipad, it looks like you are reading a book. The keypad lets the user choose the book they want to read, take notes ( useful for a class reader) and it looks like you are reading a book. You can even choose the screen brightness. It even has illustrations including the front cover.
Librarian’s note:
I have resisted the idea of the Kindle for way too long, as I am passionate about books, but it is easy and intuitive to use, the children seem to enjoy it and it is lovely to be able to carry around more than one book at a time. Several pupils own one already and tell me that they prefer reading from the screen. Worth trying for holidays and perhaps for children who like using the computer but who are reluctant readers.
Jane Cooper, Librarian
