Kids Blog

But why can’t I? / written by Sue Graves ; illustrated by Desideria Guicciardini.

George thinks rules are silly and refuses to keep them. Find out what happens when his babysitter arrives. Does he change his mind?

Not fair, won’t share / written by Sue Graves ; illustrated by Desideria Guicciardini.

Posy, Ben and Alfie have to share playing with a superdooper space station but Posy doesn’t want to share. Do the others get their turn? Read and see.
Who feels scared? / written by Sue Graves ; illustrated by Desideria Guicciardini.

Jack is having a sleepover at his house but he and his friends all hear noises and get scared. How does his father come to the rescue?
The Masai : tribe of warriors / written and photographed by Jonathan and Angela Scott.

Cattle are the centre of life for the Masai people of Kenya and Tanzania. In the past, young men would raid cattle to prove themselves as warriors and have to kill a lion with only a spear. What do they have to do today? Read this great book to find out and enjoy learning about a totally different culture. Great photos and easy text make this a great read .
Footballers / Adam Sutherland.

Did you know that Wesley Sneijder’s coaches blew a whistle and stopped training every time Sneijder touched the ball with his right foot? This was to help him practise with his weaker left foot. Learn heaps more about today’s greatest footballers from around the world in this new book. We also have other titles in this Celebrities Secrets series; Film Stars and Pop Stars are two of them.

Musical instruments for children : choosing what’s right for your child / Richard Crozier.
This book is really to help your parents understand why you want to learn a particular instrument, the kettle drum for example. It gives them advice on what really is the best instrument for your personality and all the tips on how to keep you motivated till you’re a world class performer!

Anti-terrorism campaigns.

If you’re studying terrorism and are year 8 or older then this book will be a great help. It focuses on USA campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and is written from the American perspective. Crammed full of facts with lots of maps too. The text is best suited to advanced readers.

The AWW cooking school for kids / food Director, Pamela Clark.

Another wonderful book to get you cooking! Mouth watering photos of every recipe and the steps involved make the cooking easy. My favourites are Caramel Banana Tart and Chicken and Mushroom Party Pies. Yum!

Spotlight on South Africa / Bobbie Kalman.

Apartheid is no longer a law in South Africa. Some people have better jobs with more pay but many are still living in shantytowns. This book gives a good overview of the country as it is today, with easy text and lots of great photos. The glossary at the back helps you understand some of the words you may not know.  Good for projects. Look out for this SPOTLIGHT series as there are books on lots of countries you may want to study.

Life cycles / written by Sally Morgan.

If you want to know all about the life cycle of salmon then this is the book! There is a general section on  life cycles covering many insects and animals then the remainder of the book is about the North Atlantic salmon. Wonderful photos and pictures help explain the text.

Big book of big animals / Hazel Maskell ; illustrated by Fabiano Fiorin.

Open the huge fold-out pages to see some of the tallest, longest and heaviest animals in the world. Great little facts about each animal add to the interest of this book. Lammergeiers, for example are huge birds of prey that eat bones. They often drop bigger bones onto rocks to shatter them into smaller bite-sized pieces. Who knew?

Children of the Dust Bowl : the true story of the school at Weedpatch Camp / Jerry Stanley ; illustrated with photographs.
This book is for older readers. It starts by describing the conditions of the  farmers and settlers during the drought of  the 1930s. Lots of photos help us understand the desperate conditions that drove them to travel across the country to California. The remainder of the book focuses on the efforts of Leo Hart, who founded  Weedpatch School.  The children from the dust bowl states, (Okie children)  actually helped build it. Throughout are songs and stories from people who survived. They tell of the filth and heat and dust, of the meals of coffee grounds and apple pips, and of the prejudice and poverty encountered in the California promised land.  “A powerful account of a desperate time” (Book cover)
How to do everything / written by John Woodward ; contributors, Francesca Baines … [et al.] ; illustrated by Tobatron.
How to do, make and explore just about everything! How to Do Everything is a fantastic and unique combination of reference material, fun facts, exciting activities and instructions for life. It covers everything from boiling an egg to making a movie so you’ll never be stuck wondering what to do again! So what are you waiting for? Get Busy!  (Book cover)
How to beat your dad at chess / Murray Chandler.

This is a chess book for everyone, from eight to eighty, beginner to master. It explains the best ways to beat a stronger opponent by forcing checkmate. So if you want to do the Double Rook Sacrifice or the See-Saw or the Arabian Mate check out this book.

Most of us are either left or right handed but did you know that you are also left or right eyed? Well believe it or not most humans also have a dominant eye.

If you want to find out which is your dominant eye then this is what you need to do.

Hold your arm up and place your thumb and fingers together to create a hole or circle. (Hold your arm away from your body).

Now look through this hole with both eyes at a small distant object - such as a light switch on the other side of the room. Position your hand so the object is right in the middle of the hole and keep still.

Now close one eye. Did the distant object appear to move? If so, the eye you closed is your dominant eye. If not, your open eye is the dominant eye.

Open both eyes again and realign the hole and this time close the other eye. What happened this time?

You don’t normally notice this preference because your brain usually has no problem combining the separate images from each eye into one useful picture. Sometimes it might pay more attention to one eye, then the other, depending on which is more interesting or important.

Are all right-handed people right eyed?

No, but more people are right handed than left and more people have a dominant right eye too, so most right handed people are right eyed. But there are also lots of people with cross dominance (left eye, right hand and vice versa) but most of the time it makes very little difference.

You can find out lots of stuff about your body in The Surfing Scientist 40 Super Human Body Tricks. All you need is your body, some household items and an appetite for fun.

100 Most Awesome Things on the Planet is the title of this new book. It is divided into 2 sections – Awesome Natural Wonders and Awesome Human Creations. It’s not a huge book  but has great photos and blocks of facts for each awesome thing. There is even an “awesome rating” for each entry. Some of the top rated awesomes are Grand Canyon, Monarch Migrations, Blue Whales, Solar Eclipse, Nanomachines, Blackbird(a plane), Spirit of Australia (a boat) and Bagger293. If you want to read more about these or see what the other 92 are, reserve a copy.

So you like The 39 Clues series? You were sad when it ended? You want more?

Get excited because there is a new 39 Clues series coming out this year.

The Cahill family thought they were the most powerful family the world has ever known… but they were wrong! The Vespers have been waiting in the shadows and now it’s their time to rise.

Vespers Rising is a new, and the last, book in the 39 Clues series and is due out in April 2011. This book will finish off the 39 Clues series and introduce the new series Vespers vs Cahills that is due to start in August 2011.

Did you know that the Kakapo is the rarest parrot in the world, there are only 122 left. Most live off the southern coast of New Zealand on a remote island called Codfish Island.

These birds are so precious that they have a dedicated team of people who work around the clock to help save these amazing creatures.

Here are some interesting facts about the Kakapo that you might not know:

They are the world’s heaviest parrot.

Their feathers are very soft because they don’t need them to be strong and stiff for flying.

Kakapo don’t talk, but they growl like a dog, boom like a bullfrog, and ching like a cash register.

Their feathers smell strongly of honey.

They climb high in trees using their massive feet and beaks and to get back down they jump with their wings spread.

They can live for up to one hundred years.

If you would like to learn more about these birds then take a look at Kakapo Rescue – Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot.

If you enjoy learning about history then take a look at the My Royal Story series. These books are written in diary form and put you in the shoes of some of our great historical figures. Read about Victoria as a lonely little girl who grows up to becomes the Queen of England or Cleopatra as she prepares herself to becoming the next Pharaoh of Egypt. There are also stories about Anastasia, Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette. So take a step back in time and learn heaps while having a great read.

Well as amazing as it seems someone has actually written a book about poop.  Yes that subject that most of us avoid is all out in the open now because Poop Happened.

This book has the history of the world from the bottom up with everything from the chamber pot to the astronaut’s toilet. It will have you rolling on your own toilet with laughter as well as pulling faces in real disgust.

For instance did you know that the Ancient Romans did not use toilet paper? In their public bathrooms they had a sponge on a stick that was placed in a bucket of salt water. After they….. you know… they would wipe themselves with the sponge and then put it back in the bucket for the next person. THAT IS DISGUSTING.

Or did you know that the first patents for flushing toilets were filed about two hundred years ago. But as recently as a hundred and fifty years ago, most homes still had no toilet. The new toilets were so pricey, only wealthy people could afford to have one.  Although at first they were considered status symbols, the early toilets didn’t work very well. They smelled, they leaked, and the noise they made when they flushed was deafening. And because they were not hooked up to sever lines (which didn’t exist), they often flooded people’s basements or yards. Yuk!

Fact for the day: Did you know that there are special scientist’s that spend a lot of time studying ancient poop. They are called Paleoscatologists. Believe it or not, they can learn a lot from fossilized human excrement. Rather them that me I say.

But anyway if you are interested in Poop then this book is for you but you may want to wash your hands after reading it!

Last Friday, the library hosted a Secret Spy Spectacular. My favourite spy (by far) is Harriet the Spy, aka Harriet M. Welsch.  Harriet is a busy body who lives with her far-too-busy parents and her never-too-busy nanny. When I say “busy body”, I mean “snoop”. Harriet likes nothing more than an afternoon spent spying on the people in her neighbourhood then heading home with a notebook full of observations for a tomato sandwich.  I think books are better when the people aren’t perfect. None of the people in Louise Fitzhugh’s books are perfect: not the kids, not the teachers, not the neighbours and definitely not the parents: this is what makes her books so appealing.

Harriet the Spy is the story of a lonely girl who desperately wants to reveal something – something disturbing or astonishing or radical, just something – to break the façade of her boring and controlled life. Like lots of the more remarkable and angry characters in books, Harriet does not abide by phoneys and she is (unfortunately) not afraid to hurt feelings (including her own) if it means her life becomes more interesting, raw and real.

Lots of people have read Harriet the Spy and loved it, but not so many know about the two follow up books. Harriet returns in The Long Secret, which is a wonderful summer holiday story. The long Secret begins with a nasty (but sort-of funny) secret note and Harriet’s burning desire to find out who sent it. She enlists her mousy friend Beth Allen to reluctantly help her, and they have lots of odd  encounters along the way. I like the peculiar characters – like the family who are trying to get rich making toe medicine (EW), and Bunny (COOL NAME) the pyjama-wearing piano player. The Long Secret is two books in one really: on one hand it is a riveting mystery that involves a funny holiday township, but on the other hand it is a story about feeling left out and friendship and growing up and stuff. (That leaves no hands to hold biscuits, but it’s a summer book so maybe you could just slurp a milkshake instead?).

Harriet only plays a guest role in the third book which is set back in New York. Sport  focuses on Harriet’s friend Simon who is nicknamed Sport, and lives with his really nice but really hopeless Dad. There is not so much mystery in this one, but a lot of action. Poor Sport is really put through the wringer as his evil mother (no, not evil stepmother – just plain old evil mother) tries to gain custody of him so she can get her greedy mitts on his inheritance. This book is intense! Heaps of yelling and cussing and hiding and running and worrying and laughing. (Lots of laughing from me actually, especially when Sport and his friends get their own back against rich ladies and cops -ha-ha).

I would strongly recommend these books to anyone who is sick of children’s stories that are all sweet and fluffy and nice.  Louise Fitzhugh died at a young age and it’s a real shame because she is one of the few authors that seems to “get” kids. She doesn’t write about kids the way adults like to see kids: boring, stupid and polite – she writes about kids the way kids are: interesting, thoughtful and really cool.

I would quite like to go to Hobbiton in spring, maybe catch a quidditch game at Hogwarts, Oz looks like a bit of fun and I would love to travel through Narnia – but I am not so sure about the archipelago of islands that make up Earthsea. Earthsea is a realm surrounded by a different sort of magic – one that is deep and dark and knowing. A boy called Ged was born there though, and he has no choice but to stay and discover its secrets.

A Wizard of Earthsea is like a lot of other children’s fantasy novels in that it is about a boy growing up and travelling, going to a school for wizards, making friends and enemies, saving his village, learning and making mistakes. The thing that makes it different is the magic. This is not just an adventure tale, or a school story, or a friendship quest that happens to have some cool magic: this is a book about magic and a young wizard’s battle to find its balance within himself.

The magic isn’t all fun and games and biscuits either. It isn’t magic that makes a star at the end of a wand shine or turns your teacher into a toad. It is old magic with old rules, hidden traps and an all-knowing awareness. Sometimes the magic is dark and dreadful. I listened to A Wizard of Earthsea on audio book recently: I was walking through town with my headphones on – it was a windy, rainy day and I was very caught up in the story. Suddenly something TERRIBLE happened (I won’t tell you what, you might get a fright) and I SCREAMED right there in the middle of the footpath with the people in suits on their way to work staring at me and shaking their umbrellas.

But don’t be scared: it is only a book, and it is really a very good one. I won’t tell you that it has a happy ending, or that it is sooo funny and cool and easy to read, but I will tell you that if you truly like fantasy you really ought to come down to your library and get A Wizard of Earthsea.

This painting is by Astrid Nielsch who was inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s writing. She is exhibiting her paintings next week; you should go and have a look. They will be showing at Thistle Hall in Wellington – Cuba Street corner Arthur Street from 17 to 22 August, Tuesday to Saturday 11 am – 8 pm and Sunday 11 am – 6 pm. The opening is on Tuesday the 17th of August from 6-9 pm, and Astrid says you can expect dragons, wizards and magic!

The three best things in life: Books (0bviously), Biscuits and Music. Reading books is the best way to pass the time, eating biscuits is the best way to pass the time and survive without fading away, and music is like the cherry on top. Music turns an ordinary experience into an extraordinary experience. Imagine how dull a film would be without the soundtrack. Does your life have a good soundtrack? The simple way to add music to your life would be to turn the radio on or the CD player or maybe watch some c4. But, what is the most interesting way to add music to your life? MAKE MUSIC YOURSELF.

John Crossingham has created a book to help you. Learn to Speak Music shows you how to become a musician, and honestly, it’s not hard. This book walks you through each step from learning an instrument to putting on performances and promoting your band. There are chapters featuring: Making Music (choosing instruments, learning to play), Forming a Band (finding members, choosing a name), Writing Lyrics and Music (song patterns, inspiration), Playing Live (covering costs, what gear you need, keeping your cool), Recording Your Music (Hi Fi vs. Lo Fi, basic recording gear) and Spreading the Word (How to make Do-It-Yourself band T-shirts, eye-catching posters).

You may be thinking ‘isn’t this a bit much for a kid?’ no way! Don’t underestimate yourself. You don’t have to be an expert to make music and have fun performing it. Lots of famous bands started out with very young members. Have you heard of: Kings of Leon, The Jonas Brothers, Radiohead, Paramore, Hanson, The Go Go’s, Napalm Death, The Runaways, Def Leppard, The Jackson 5, Kate Bush, Lil Wayne, Shonen Knife? Or New Zealand bands Shihad, Bressa Creting Cake, Ladieswear Landscapi, Bandicoot, TFF, Die! Die! Die!? All these bands have or had members that were still at school and there are many, many more.

Another cool book that will help you get rolling towards rock stardom is The Girls Guide To Rocking by Jessica Hopper. I recommend this even if you are not a girl. It is really in-depth and has interesting appendices to inspire you. If you need some audio-visual motivation check out Girls Rock! Some of the girls on this DVD can really scream.

Now, one other thing, you must cross your heart promise that if you do start a band you will let me know. I will be your biggest fan and I will bring biscuits.