• recommended
• staff spotlight
• storytime

Island Bay Babies take note!

Baby Rock and Rhyme does exactly what it says.

Engages baby, involves action songs and nursery rhymes and entertains!

Odette and Joy will take your babies through their musical paces.

They'll introduce forgotten songs from your childhood and gems you've never heard of.

Every parent receives a new book to be read together and to their baby. These are chosen from the Library collection and include classics like 'Brown Bear Brown Bear, what do you see?'

All free and at Island Bay Library!

What: Baby Rock and Rhyme

Time : Every Wednesday at 9.30 am during school terms.

Where : Island Bay Library

Contact Joy if you'd like to know more or inquire at Island Bay Library.

Staff Spotlight:

This month we talk to Marg...

Q:You've just put together an 'Around the World' large print selection at Newtown Library. Are you an intrepid explorer?

A:Yes, there are a few interesting stamps on the passport including Antarctica. I went there as a recipient of the Artists to Antarctica fellowship. There are two attractive looking visa stamps from Vietnam and Cambodia which I visited last year.
I travelled up the Mekong to Cambodia on a houseboat with stops along the way. Trips to Borneo and the Chatham Islands are planned for this year and I like heading off into the bush with my sketchbook and very patient friends.

Q:I know these places inspire your painting. Does your love of art cross over into your work at Newtown Library?

A:I always enjoy seeing the new arts and crafts books that come into the library, because, as a practising artist, I am always interested in new ideas and developments in the art world. Central Library has a great art collection.
I put together a display of art books in collaboration with Stephanie who buys them. It showcased some of the new and interesting art books at Newtown, Brooklyn and Island Bay libraries and proved very popular.
I also did a painting workshop recently with some new migrants which was fun. A couple of years back or whenever the film Narnia screened I painted a mural of the snow queen's Palace that was in the [Newtown Library] tent. Suppose I've had a fascination with snow and icicles since Antarctica.

Q:Can you recommend a book from that display?

A:The Drawing Book: a Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of Expression - edited by Tania Kovats

Q:Marg, you're a Collection advocate here at Newtown Library. Collection advocate?

A:We are the ones that make sure the shelves are not full to bursting with old and tired looking books. To do this we look at the books that come on rotation from other libraries to make sure they are in good condition and likely to be of interest to our borrowers.
To assist with this we check to see how often the book has gone out in the past. We also process requests to purchase books from customers which are then sent to the Collection Development Team in Central Library who then decide what gets purchased. We also have input into book displays at the library.

Staff Recommend:

My Wife is an Actress (DVD)
Stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and her real life husband having a crise de marriage. Very funny and very fwench --Odette

The Portable Atheist : Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
Edited by Christopher Hitchens
A fascinatingly rich collection of historical and contemporary essay's exploring atheism, science and philosophers response to religious dogma.--Craig

Flight of the Conchords (DVD)
I loved the Flight of the Conchords, the complete first season. Its just really funny, with lots of kiwi humour --Pauline

The Lives of Others (DVD)
A compelling political thriller set in East Berlin between 1984 and 1991. Captain Gerd Weisler, a member of the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) is ordered to spy on a well known playwright. He becomes emotionally involved which has a life long affect on his own life. --Julie

Happy Ending, The Phoenix Foundation (CD)
More great stuff from this terrific Wellington band. Pretty much every song's a winner and the cover art is quite special too. --Fleur

Llamas and Empanadas : 500 Kilometres by Bicycle Through South America, by Eleanore Meecham. --Marg

Musicophilia : Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks.
Gentle, learned and fascinating insights into musical, neurological afflictions and blessings of the brain. --Monty

Book Group Notes:

Earthly Pleasures
by Karen Neches
Skye Sebring is a greeter in the Hospitality Department of Heaven who finds herself drawn to the Earthly Pleasures TV channel ("reality TV for Heaven dwellers") after she welcomes the handsome, reformed playboy Ryan "Bad Boy" Blaine to the pearly gates. The lawyer son of a former president, Ryan's stay in heaven is cut short (his death is more of the brush-with-death variety), but he can't forget Skye, who reminds him of someone he knew.

Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston
Quinn (nicknamed "Q") has a plan for her life, including having a baby before 30 and continuing her job as a New York City lawyer. When a routine ultrasound leads to a diagnosis of low amniotic fluid, Q is forced to spend the last three months of her pregnancy on bed rest. The adjustment is difficult-her husband is frequently absent (he's trying to become a partner at his law firm), and Q comes to rely on the kindness of casual acquaintances-turned-friends, who serve as her only window to the outside world.

The Time Traveller's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
This debut novel tells the compelling love story of artist Clare and her husband, Henry, a librarian at the Newberry Library who has an ailment called Chrono-Displaced Person (CDP), which without his control removes him to the past or the future under stressful circumstances. The story is told from the perspectives of Henry and Clare at various times in their lives.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
At the heart of this book is Senator Obama's vision of how the USA can move beyond their divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the trans-national threats - from terrorism to pandemic.

Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
by John Gray
For the decade that followed the end of the cold war, the world was lulled into a sense that a consumerist, globalized, peaceful future beckoned. The beginning of the twenty-first century has rudely disposed of such ideas - most obviously through 9/11and its aftermath. But just as damaging has been the rise in the West of a belief that a single model of political behaviour will become a worldwide norm and that, if necessary, it will be enforced at gunpoint.

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment
by Martin Seligman
Drawing on groundbreaking scientific research, Seligman shows how Positive Psychology is shifting the profession's paradigm away from its narrow-minded focus on pathology, victimology, and mental illness to positive emotion and mental health. Happiness, studies show, is not the result of good genes or luck. It can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing traits that we already possess - including kindness, originality, humour, optimism, and generosity.

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World by Tim Harford
The Logic of Life presents an X-ray image of human life, stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The stories that emerge are not about data or equations but about people: the athlete who survived a shocking murder attempt, the computer geek who beat the hard-bitten poker pros, the economist who defied Henry Kissinger and faked an invasion of Berlin, the king who tried to buy off a revolution.

The Point of Rescue
by Sophie Hannah
Sally is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise: Mark Bretherick. Last year, a business trip Sally had planned was cancelled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from her busy life juggling work and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she booked a week off work and treated herself to a secret holiday. All she wanted was a bit of peace - some time to herself - but it didn't work out that way. Because Sally met a man - Mark Bretherick.

12 Books that changed the world, by Melvyn Bragg.
This incredible volume introduces us to life changing texts in the English speaking world. The abolition of Slavery, Darwin's Origin of species, King James Bible, the Patent for Arkwright's spinning machines, first folio of Shakespeare are all included. Bragg sets the scene of the period, the background of the writer and why this text was important. A delicious and relevant history lesson.

The fifth child, by Doris Lessing.
A self-satisfied couple intent on raising a happy family is shocked by the birth of an abnormal and brutal fifth child. A well-told story that raises harrowing questions; What are the limits of a parent's love? What are the limits of a society's duty to care? Are all children lovable? Should they be? This novella forces the reader to take a painstaking look at evil and challenges us to refrain from passing judgement on the good souls faced with it.

Storytime

Every Thursday at 10.30am - come along to Island Bay Library and join in for 30 minutes of stories, songs and rhymes. All preschoolers and their parents or care-givers welcome!