Kids Blog

Looking for a good book? Check out the 2007 winners of the Nestle Children’s Book Prize.

Books for 9 to 11 year olds
Gold: Shadow Forest by Matt Haig
Silver: Catcall by Linda Newbery
Bronze: Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve
Books for 6 to 8 year olds
Gold: Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell
Silver: Ivan the Terrible by Anne Fine
Bronze: Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett
Books for 5 and under
Gold: When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor and Nick Sharatt
Silver: Penguin by Polly Dunbar
Bronze: Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie by Joel Stewart

My favourites are Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears and Penguin. If you want to find out more take a look at the Booktrusted website.

Medieval descriptions of the Yale varied a lot. Some described the Yale as a hippopotamus, or bull-like creature the size of a horse; others said it was like an antelope.

It was said to have the tusks of a wild boar, the jaw and beard of a goat, and the tail of an elephant. The Yale’s colour ranged from black, brown, grey or beige, to green with red spots.

The strangest feature of the Yale was its horns. They were long and flexible and the Yale could move them independently of each other. The horns could be straight, curved, pointed sideways, downwards, or straight ahead. The Yale could attack with one horn pointed forwards, and defend itself with the other pointed behind it.

The Catoblepas was a similar mythical animal with breath so poisonous that other animals would suffer convulsions and die. It could kill with a single glance.

Find out more…

Johnsonville Library will be celebrating the Year of the Rat at this year’s Chinese New Year Celebration. We will be having lots of stories, craft and fun games so come along dressed up for the occasion. See you there! Suitable for primary school age.

Johnsonville Library

Thursday 31st January

10.30am to 12 noon

Have you heard the story of Excalibur? … What’s Excalibur anyway? Who or what is the Abominable Snowman, and is he really so scary? What did Robin Hood do?  Are there any cool legends about bears?

The next Stories@7 is all about myths and legends. See you there! Bring all your friends! (Remember, you get to choose the theme for next month.)

The Details:

When? Friday 1 February at 7pm (of course)

Where? Central Library, 65 Victoria Street, Wellington

Stories@7, a fun 45 minute story time for ages 7 and up

first Friday of every month, Central Library

Holidays getting boring? Karori Library is still giving you the chance to make and publish your own book. Just come in and ask a librarian and they can show you how to get started!

After the 31st of January all the books will be on display for everyone to look at and admire.

What are you doing next Tuesday? Come along to the Holiday programme at Johnsonville Library. We are going to design and make our own 2008 calendar as well as creating our own timepieces.  See you there.

Johnsonville Library

Tuesday 29th January

11am – 12 noon

Have you read all of the Jack Russell Dog Detective books? Are you looking for more of the same (you know, detective/mystery-type stories with animals)? Well we’ve ordered The Pet Finders Club series by Ben Baglio, you can reserve one (or two) now and you’ll be the first to read them when they arrive!

And for Rainbow Magic fans:
The next series of books about those hip and happening fairies is about: sports! Soon you’ll meet Gemma the gymnastics fairy, Alice the tennis fairy, Naomi the netball fairy and their friends. Reserve a copy, or search for other Daisy Meadows classics you haven’t read already.

Hey!  Did you know the reason why spiders don’t stick to their own webs?  Well apparently they walk on tiptoe!  Strange but true… I didn’t know they had toes to walk on!  They also make different strands of silk; some are very sticky and some aren’t, and the spiders know which ones to walk on… a bit like a spider obstacle course. How annoyed would they be if they stepped on the wrong one and got caught in their own web!  They’d be CAUGHT OUT!! Hee hee.

Have you ever seen an insect really close up? Or through a microscope? They’re pretty ugly I can tell you. I’d be terrified if there really was a human-sized bug!! But phew, apparently it would never happen because their skeleton (which is on the outside of their body, an exoskeleton) would split open if they grew too big and all their insides would spill out. And even if the exoskeleton could grow thick enough to carry the weight of the bug, it would be so heavy I wouldn’t worry about them chasing you along the road, they probably wouldn’t be able to move!!!

If you want to check out more facts about bugs go to 595.7 in the non-fiction section.  And there’s a great book if you want to see what insects (and other things) look like really close up, it’s called Out of Sight: Pictures of Hidden Worlds by Seymour Simon.  You can find it at 612.84 SIM in the non-fiction area, or ask one of the staff. You can also take a look at Kids Cat.

All snake-like creatures were referred to as serpents in medieval times. The most powerful of the serpents was the Dragon. It was said to represent evil, and it could crush and suffocate any creature in its coils. The only enemy of the Dragon was the Ibis: although a Dragon would also run from the breath of a panther – which was said to be incredibly sweet – and run from the sight of a naked man!

Dragons would also drink the blood of elephants and could drain one dry. Dragons would apparently only fly at night, and “dragon’s water” dropping from the sky was blamed for causing diseases and plagues.

The Basilisk (made famous in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) was another powerful serpent, and was called the king of snakes. It was born from a rooster laying a shell-less yellow egg that was hatched by a toad. The Basilisk was said to have the head of a rooster, breath that could burn, and a hiss that could kill people.

Find out more about Serpents here.

I read a great book recently called Recycled, by Sandy McKay.  What’s really good about it is that it tells you all kinds of interesting facts about the environment.  For example, did you know that:

• Recycling aluminium cans uses 95% less energy than making new ones…?
• There are 500 million cars on this planet…? Yuk, think about all that pollution!
• Fifty acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute (I wonder what happens to all the animals that live there?)…?
• More than one billion trees are cut down every year to make disposable nappies…?
• Each year most families throw away 1.5 tonnes of rubbish (that’s the same weight as half an elephant!)…?

If you want to find out how you can help the planet check out www.ecokids.co.nz