Kia ora BookBusters – we had such a fun meeting this month! There were some great books reviewed by our members (these will be up on the kids’ blog soon) and we had an exciting library treasure hunt. Everyone did a fantastic job of answering library and book related questions and worked well in their teams. Great stuff! This was all in celebration of our graduating BookBusters turning 9 and to congratulate them on their great effort at BookBusters. We’re so proud of you all. Our graduating BookBusters (and everybody aged 9-12) can join BookSeekers to continue the fun.
BookBusters
Free school holiday activities at your library
It’s the holidays! Finally!
We hope you are not bored already. I don’t think that’s possible with all the great things we’ve got happening in our libraries. Here’s the run down for the 1st week:
Monday 2nd July:
Baby Rock and Rhyme for 0-2 yr olds – Karori Library at 9.45am
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Johnsonville, Karori, Tawa, and Kilbirnie Libraries at 10.30am
Tuesday 3rd July:
Baby Rock and Rhyme for 0-2 yr olds – Miramar Library at 10.15am
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Brooklyn, Central, Johnsonville, Khandallah, and Karori Libraries at 10.30am and Miramra Library at 10.15am
BookBusters for 7-8 year olds – Island Bay and Karori Libraries at 4pm
Wednesday 4th July:
Baby Rock and Rhyme for 0-2 yr olds – Central, Island Bay and Johnsonville Libraries at 9.30am, and Cummings Park Library at 10.15am
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Karori, Newtown and Kilbirnie Libraries at 10.30am
BookBusters for 7-8 year olds – Tawa Library at 4pm
Paralympics and Olympics Activities for 5-12 year olds – Karori Library at 11.15am
Thursday 5th July:
Baby Rock and Rhyme for 0-2 yr olds – Johnsonville Library at 9.30am
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Karori, Island Bay Libraries at 10.30am, and Miramar Library at 10.15am
BookBusters for 7-8 year olds – Johnsonville and Kilbirnie Libraries at 4pm
Paralympics and Olympics Activities for 5-12 year olds – Newtown Library at 11am
Friday 6th July:
Baby Rock and Rhyme for 0-2 yr olds – Tawa Library at 9.30am, Karori Library at 9.45am, and Kilbirnie Library at 10.15am
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Central, Karori and Wadestown Libraries at 10.30am
Paralympics and Olympics Activities for 5-12 year olds – Johnsonville Library at 11am and Miramar Library at 2pm
Stories@7 for 7+ years – Central Library at 7pm
Saturday 7th July:
Storytimes for 3-5 year olds – Central Library at 11am
All activities are free and fun, no bookings required.
BookBusters time!
Club meetings are on next week, BookBusters. July is always our mid-year graduation and prizegiving. You won’t want to miss out on this one – there will be prizes, certificates, heaps of books, food and fun fun fun!
Tuesday 3rd July 4-5pm: Island Bay Library and Karori Library
Wednesday 4th July 4-5pm: Tawa Library
Thursday 5th July 4-5pm: Kilbirnie Library and Johnsonville Library
BookBusters is a free monthly book club for 7-8 year olds. Check out all the details here or here.
Johnsonville BookBuster Reviews
Check out what the Johnsonville BookBusters have been reading in the last month.
Hannah reviewed Malory Towers by Pamela Cox who has continued this series orginally written by Enid Blyton. In this book Felicity is the head girl and June is the sports captain. Together they discover something strange about the girl Alice. Why has she changed her name?
Satine has been reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. While Stanley was asleep a bulletin board fell on top of him and made him flat. In fact he is now only half an inch thick. This proves to be very useful when Stanley’s mother finds she has lost her wedding ring. They discover it down a drain pipe and because Stanley is so thin they are able to slide him down the drain pipe to rescue it.
Noah has been reading Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever. In this book there is a big blizzard and Greg is stuck inside with his family. He goes down into the basement and finds a doll from his mother’s childhood. A very strange doll called a Santa Scout.
Shavonne has been reading the Star Girl series. Star Girl lives in space at the Space Education and 
Action School. Along with her friends she travels around saving space one planet at a time. In this book there are monster polar bears and purple water in outer space.
Holly has been reading Popular Clone. This story is about a boy called Fisher who is having a hard time at school and is bullied. He is also very clever and high tech and he decides to make a clone of himself that can go to school in his place. His clone turns out to be a lot cooler than Fisher and ends up being kidnapped by Dr X.
Arianna had been reading King of Show and Tell by Abby Klein. It is about a boy called Freddy who has a big problem. He never has anything good to bring to show and tell. His best friend Robbie was able to bring in an alligator head. How can Freddy come up with something as cool as that?
Tawa BookBusters Reviews
Here are the latest and greatest reads from the Tawa BookBusters.
Jacob has been reading How Things Work. He explained to us how the book demonstrated how cogs worked. His example was if you turn the crank handle of a cog with 6 bolts which then turns a handle with 12 bolts it will take the smaller 12 bolt cog two revolutions to travel around the larger 6 blot clog once. He also like the model that explained how an elevator worked
Alicia and Natalie have both been reading Who is Hilda Hardmouth. Hilda is a hideous headteacher of the local school, but she really hates children. She likes to make up lots of rules and they all start with DONT. Look up Karen Wallace, the author of these books, for some other great titles by her.
Riley has been reading The Witches. It is about a boy called Bruno whose parents have died and he has gone to live with his grandmother. They go to stay in a hotel where they discover a room full of witches. You can tell when a person is a witch because they have blue tongues, a large nose, they are bald and have no toes. The witches end up turning Bruno into a mouse and Bruno (as a mouse) and his grandmother have to seal the potion away from the witches before they turn everyone into mice.
Jack has been reading Asterix and Obelix. It is about 2 warriors that are very strong and go out fighting. In the comic that Jack has been reading Asterix and Obelix had to go to Africa to get a person out of prison. They had to fight a whole army to do so.
Owen has been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. His favourite part was at the end of the book when Harry is standing in front of the mirror and the philosopher’s stone appeared in his pocket. He also enjoyed reading the parts that were in the Forbidden Forest. He is currently reading the next title in the series.
Bethnany has been reading The Suitcase Kid. Its about a girl called Andrea who has to cope with her parents divorce. She travels from parent to parent spending a week with each. She finds it very hard to decide which parent she wants to stay with.
Hayden has been reading from the Beast Quest series – Torgor the Minotaur. The main characters in the story are Tom and Elenna. In this story the minotaur throws a tree truck at Tom.
Johnsonville BookBusters June Meeting
We had an out of this world experience at the Johnsonville BookBusters this month as we looked at all things to do with Space. We discovered that Saturn has more than 60 moons and that Earth is located in the Milky Way galaxy. We also looked at the Transit of Venus which was a big astromical event that we experienced recently.
During our session we broke into teams and had a space quiz. This was great fun and it was good to see you work together as a group to get your answers correct. We were impressed that you know so much about space.
Thank you all for sharing your great reviews. Most of you were able to tell us about a book that you have been reading recently which was awesome. Make sure you look out for your reviews which will be posted here soon.
The next BookBusters meeting is our mid-year graduation celebration: Thursday July 5th at 4pm. Don’t miss out!
Kilbirnie BookBusters in June
ABRACADABRA, BookBusters!
We had a marvellous magical MAGIC themed BookBusters this June. Our BookBusters Chiefs displayed their strange and unnerving librarian powers of Second Sight and mind reading (yes, you had better watch out next time you run in the library). We also studied eye scrambling optical illusions. BookBusters members created their own magic tricks to astound family and friends.
We discussed how to find books about magic tricks and illusions in our libraries. We also looked at Reference books – and any Kilbirnie BookBuster will tell you that these books have a large red R on their spines, and you can’t take them home but you can read them in the library. Ask a librarian to bring out the really cool pop up Reference books from behind the desk.
Our members reviewed books they’ve been reading lately. Willa reviewed Sophie and the Shadow Woods series by Linda Chapman and Lee Weatherly. Anita reviewed the Dork Diaries series by Rachel Renee Russell. Both series were highly recommended by Willa and Anita.
We welcomed several new members to our group this month. Great to have you along.
Our next meeting is July 5th, 2012 4 -5pm Kilbirnie Library and will be our mid-year graduation and prizegiving.
Ka Kite Busters!
Tawa BookBusters in June
It was all about space at Tawa BookBusters at the June meeting as the Transit of Venus was taking place at the same time as our meeting. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t good enough for us to observe it but we were able to look online at some live coverage of the transit.
As well as learning all about the transit we discovered some other interesting information about space and the BookBuster Chiefs were very impressed about how much you guys know about our solar system. We played a game where we had to create a star by correctly answering a space question. Each time you got an answer correct you were able to draw a point on your star. You were so good at this our two teams came in equal.
So many of you shared your reviews this month. It’s awesome that you are so keen to tell us what you have been reading so keep it up. We love hearing what books you have enjoyed.
See you at the next BookBusters meeting at Tawa on July 4th at 4pm. We will be having our mid-year graduation and prizegiving, so don’t miss out!
Karori BookBusters in June
Kia ora BookBusters! Karori kids had a fantastic session this month celebrating Matariki. We talked about what Matariki means and why it is special in Aotearoa New Zealand. Then we had a go at writing and drawing our own stories, myths and legends. It was great to have you all along, we’re looking forward to our next meeting already!
In July we will be having our mid-year graduation club meeting. Come along to join in – Tuesday 3rd July at 4pm at Karori Library. See you there!
Kids’ Review by Amy
Esio Trot by Roald Dahl.
Esio Trot is about a man who lives in a block of flats and he loves the woman (her name is Mrs Silver.) But Mrs Silver has all her love on her pet tortoise Alfie. But then Mr Hoppy (the man) plays a trick on Mrs Silver and suddenly she loves him as well and asks if he could come down to her flat and Mr Hoppy asks if he could marry her. She said yes. The best part was when Mrs Silver said he could marry her. The worst part was when Mr Hoppy played a trick on Mrs Silver. I recommend it to six, seven, eight or nine year olds, both boys and girls. Rating nine and a half stars out of ten.
Thanks for the review Amy!