William Shakespeare was a famous playwright and poet who lived in
England in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s. If he was alive today he would be over 400 years old! In his lifetime he wrote at least 38 plays. Many of his plays are famous, like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. Shakespeare also wrote over 160 poems, known as sonnets because of the way they rhyme. Shakespeare’s plays are divided by scholars into comedies, tragedies and histories. Because
England in Shakespeare’s time was ruled by a Monarch, the subjects of his plays are often based on what the king or queen would like to see performed.
Check out The Usborne World of Shakespeare, or some other great books and websites about Shakespeare.
Ok, I’ve done some very important research and found these weird and disgusting facts that you can tell everyone…..but I bet they don’t believe that they are for real! Guess what Ancient Romans used to dye their hair with? Something white and sticky that comes out of pigeons bottoms, yes, pigeon poo! How gross! Speaking of poo, did you know that beetle poo is called a ‘twissle’. Mmm, feeling hungry? Fancy some hedge-hog flavoured chips? Yes, apparently they do exist but I’ve never seen a shop selling them!
And in South-East Asia some people eat deep friend insects instead of chips, yum yum, crispy cockroach……! Arrgghh! I just read something really horrible! In Sardinia (that’s an island off Italy) you can eat a cheese that has live maggots in it! They leave the cheese in the sun so that the flies lay their eggs on it and when the maggots hatch out it’s ready to eat! That is making me feel really sick. Ug, that’s all the disgusting facts I can take right now I think but if you want more check out the quiz books in the library, they’ll be in the junior non-fiction section 793.73, if you can’t find any, find a librarian and ask them! (plus see if they believe you about the facts!!)
The Grumble Rumble Mumbler by Melanie Drewery
The Grumble Rumble Mumbler tells the age-old story of a child that can’t get to sleep because of night noises. A cast of Maori monsters will help children to see the funny side of things that go bump in the night…
To join in the fun you are invited to attend one of the following storytime sessions:
Cummings Park Library, Ngaio
Karori Library
Khandallah Library
Ruth Gotlieb Library, Kilbirnie
Miramar (please note storytime will be on Tuesday 16th at 10:15am)
Newtown Library
Mervyn Kemp Library, Tawa
Wellington Central Library
Did you know that the first French satellite was named Asterix-1 in honour of Asterix? Asterix stories have been translated from French into more than 100 languages and dialects including Icelandic, Arabic and even Ancient Greek. The names of all the Asterix characters contain puns (jokes that play with words), for example Cacophonix is a really bad musician and a cacophony is a really awful noise…
For cool wallpapers, games and other stuff you can visit the official French site www.asterix.com. There’s also a New Zealand site with lots of news, facts and fun at www.asterix.co.nz. Click here to see what Asterix books are in the library at the moment. Goscinny (who wrote the Asterix books) wrote other stuff as well… there’s also a series of books about a boy called Nicholas. They’re about a French boy (Nicholas of course) and what mischief he and his friends get up to. Look them up on the catalogue . We’ve even got it in French!
Worms are way cool… They can eat all your family’s food scraps, and the worm wee and poo they make can be used in the garden (it’s really good for the plants). If you don’t believe me why not try it out for yourself… All you have to do is to make or buy a worm farm and some Tiger or red worms. But be warned! Worms don’t like spicy food, onions or citrus fruits. And don’t believe the story that if you cut a worm in half it will grow into two worms – wrong, you’ll just be left with one dead worm!A worm farm would be a great hobby or class project, you should ask your teacher to take a look at this website. It tells you all you need to know about worm farms… And check out page 33 of This Book is a Load of Rubbish by Deborah Burnside for how to make a worm farm.
