Kids Blog

Super silly riddles / Charles Keller ; illustrated by Dave Winter.
Feast on more than 500 riddles and drive your friends and parents crazy.

Dr. Knucklehead’s knock-knocks / by Chris Tait ; illustrated by Lance Lekander.
Who doesn’t love knock-knock jokes!  Heaps of jokes in here to crack you up. Start knocking!

Critter jokes & riddles / Janet Nuzum Myers ; illustrated by Dave Clegg.
Why do fish avoid computers? They get caught in the Internet. “What happened to the leopard that fell into a washing machine? “He came out spotless.” Every animal and critter seems to feature in this great wee joke book. Checkit out for a really good laugh.
Dressing up as a pirate / Rebekah Joy Shirley ; photography by Chris Fairclough.

Learn how to make a pirate’s hook and an eye-patch, a skull and crossbones hat and a trusty parrot friend! Great book of easy step-by-step photos on how tp become a real pirate. Other books in this series also new to the library are :Dressing up as a fairy / Rebekah Joy Shirley ; photography by Chris Fairclough.
Dressing up as a knight / Rebekah Joy Shirley ; photography by Chris Fairclough.
Dressing up as a Princess / Rebekah Joy Shirley ; photography by Chris Fairclough.
Dressing up as an astronaut / Rebekah Shirley.
Dressing up as a robot / Rebekah Joy Shirley ; photography by Chris Fairclough.

Street dance : the people, the music, the moves / Liz Gogerly. Learn how to really bust some moves in this great book about street dance. Soon you’ll be able to do the body lock and house step along with the best of them. It’s time to party!

Food and faith / Susan Reuben and Sophie Pelham ; photography by Jan Panke, Sophie Pelham and Nicholas Posner.

Having a special kind of party? Maybe it’s a religious celebration in your culture. Find out all about food traditions  and their special rituals in this book about food and faith. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism are all included in this interesting book. Great photos make you hungry just reading it.

Lego Harry Potter : building the magical world / written by Elizabeth Dowsett.

Want some LEGO for your birthday? This month we add to our great colection of books about LEGO with this fantastic book about Harry Potter LEGO. Hogwart’s castle, the Chamber of Secrets and the Shrieking Shack all feature in this comprehensive book that contains everything magical about Harry 501 great kiwi jokes / [illustrations by Donovan Bixley].

You know that laughing helps you to heal fast, right! Well this book supports CURE Kids. Check out the website in the back of the book after you have laughed yourself silly at the wonderful jokes inside. What do you get when your dog has its sixth birthday? Why did Kiri break into song? What’s grumpy and goes really well with ice-cream? You’ll have to read the book to find the answers.

Not in the mood to party? Then learn how to knit and play chess over the holidays with these great new books;How to play chess / Daniel King.

How to knit / Fiona Watt ; illustrated by Stella Baggott ; photographs by Howard Allman. This is a great book for learners as well as those of you who have knitted the ODD scarf before.

More stuff to do with your hands! Get them  into the dirt,  (AFTER you’ve read the book of course)Yates young gardener : get your hands dirty / Janice Marriott ; [illustrations, Deborah Hinde]. then learn how to draw whacky robots with Fun to draw cool robots / Robert Ainsworth.

This month we have a wide variety of new titles. Something for everyone. Whether your interest is experiments, learning the guitar or just rubbish, we have the book for you!

This book is totally rubbish / illustrated by Nik Afia.
“Meet Meggie, Rose, Oscar and Bentley. They are having a ‘totally rubbish day’ where they will reuse oodles of things and invent new stuff to play with. They’re doing this to help the environment and to become eco superheroes.” (Book Cover) One of the best books on recycling activities that I’ve seen. Great for Years 2 to 5.

First guitar tutor / Terry Burrows ; text adapted by Stephen Cole.
This book gives you tips on how to choose your first guitar and how to play it, even if you’re left handed! Great for years 5 and up.

Electric motor experiments / Ed Sobey.
“How do motors work? Using the experiments in this book, learn how to build and use your own motor! See how motors work in cars and boats. Find out what other cool things motors can do.” (Book cover) My favourite is the motor boat made out of the milk carton. Try it out! Great ideas for science fair projects here too. Perfect for all budding engineers years 2/3 and up.

I can remember World War II / Sally Hewitt.
In this book six people remember and tell you about their experinces of living through World War ll. Hear from a land girl, a child, a prisoner of war and a navy commando what is was really like. I love this book because the great layout and cool photos, cartoons and posters helped me easily learn heaps about the war. Perfect if you are interested in the Second World War and are Year 4 or up.

Terezín : voices from the Holocaust / Ruth Thomson.
This book explores the lives of Jewish people in one of the most infamous of the Nazi transit camps. Through inmates’  secret diary entries and artwork along with interviews done after the war, we get a clear picture of exactly what life was like for them in this camp.  An informative read for anyone studying or interested in the Holocaust.

What’s for dinner? : quirky, squirmy poems from the animal world / Katherine B. Hauth ; illustrated by David Clark.
Eating is a matter of life and death for us all, but it can also be weird, surprising, or just plain gross. Enjoy these twenty-nine poems which are all about the unusual and sometimes gruesome ways animals eat. Warning – do not try these eating habits at your own dinner table!

Everything you need to know about animals / Nicola Davies.

Did you know that the Peregrine falcon is the fastest animal/bird on earth, recorded at speeds of 270km/hour! This book is crammed with fantastic facts, illustrations and creative activities you can do at home.

Mondays are murder / Tanya Landman.

I know what you did last Wednesday / Anthony Horowitz.

Classic mysteries set on isolated Scottish islands where the invited guests are being killed off one by one.

Try and figure out who’s responsible, but be warned, the authors throw in red herrings to try and make you suspect the wrong people.

These skinny books are a fast paced read for older kids and teens.

We all know about the famous princesses from stories like Snow White and Cinderella but what about those other magical and mysterious princess who have long remained anonymous.  Well not anymore!

Take a look at The Secret Lives of Princesses and discover some very strange and wonderful princesses.

There is Princess Somnia who comes from a family of do-nothings. Laziness is their policy and the sloth their emblem and guess what – she is related to Sleeping Beauty.

Then there is Princess Paige. She loves books and is an expert in rhyme and speaks only in verse. She also knows the dictionary by heart.

And let’s not forget Princess Anne Phibian. She has an obsession with frogs but she is very pretty, doesn’t drool, doesn’t croak and doesn’t have warts. She is always looking for her Prince Charming and is convinced he is disguised as a frog.

If you love princesses then you will love this book so take a look!

Farticus Maximus : bottomus burps of Britannia and other foul-smelling stories! / written & illustrated by Felice Arena.

When you look at it you think boring! But inside there are lots of funny cartoons and poems. There’s even a story in it. But I still think that the stories should be a bit longer. Again like it says on the back “I laughed so hard I farted!”

Review by Fenn,  Age 9.

Our older and braver readers will probably want to get their grubby mitts on these super scary stories from the master storyteller.  Click on the link to reserve a copy.

More bloody Horowitz

Duncan read The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. He liked the amazing characters in it. His  favourite character is, of course, Captain Underpants.

Sean talked about the book Dogs Don’t Tell Jokes by Louis Sachar. It’s about a boy who loves to tell jokes even if nobody laughs much when he does.

If you liked watching the Commonwealth Games you may be interested in reading about some of the more unusual and strange events in the world of sport.

In The Mad, Mad World of Sport there are some mind-boggling and jaw-dropping stories.

For instance a rugby league player called Ben Czislowski had a pretty sickening head on clash with another player during a game. He got a very nasty wound next to his eye and it wouldn’t heal. Fifteen weeks later the doctors discovered that a tooth from the other player had got buried in there and that’s why it would not heal. Yuk.

Or there is the story of the boxer who knocked himself out. That’s really clever. Or the tennis player who was so nervous that she started her match with seventeen double-faults. It meant her opponent won four games and established a lead without even touching the ball.

There are heaps of interesting stories like this so check it out.

Amulet. Book one, The stonekeeper by  Kazu Kibuishi.
“After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids’ mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals. Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together with Miskit, they face the most terrifying monster of all, and Em finally has the chance to save someone she loves.” (Syndetics summary)

Diary of a wimpy kid : Greg Heffley’s journal by Jeff Kinney.
Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.(Syndetics summary)

EJ12: On the ball  by Susannah McFarlane.

 In this installment Special Agent EJ12 must discover the spy at SHINE’s top secret training camp, meanwhile her alter ego Emma Jacks worries about getting into the soccer team. Sometimes it seems easier to save the world…

The faceless ones by Derek Landy

In the third book of this series Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie have to solve a whole bunch of murders, stop the Faceless Ones from returning, and oh yeah, save the world by Friday. This blend of humour and horror has earnt several awards.

The gates / by John Connolly.
“In this frothy fantasy thriller from bestseller Connolly (The Book of Lost Things), 11-year-old Samuel Johnson witnesses an inadvertent intersection of science and the supernatural while trick-or-treating at the Abernathy household in Biddlecombe, England. Something nasty reaches through an atomically engineered portal to Hades and possesses four suburban sorcerers. From that point on, Samuel finds himself battling hordes of invading demons and desperately trying to convince disbelieving adults that the impending end of the world is not a fancy of his overactive imagination. Connolly plays this potentially spooky scenario strictly for laughs, larding the narrative with droll jokes, humorous asides and the slapstick pratfalls of Nurd, an amusingly incompetent subdemon whom Samuel ultimately befriends. Though billed as “an adult book for children,” this light fantasy will strike even adult readers as divertingly whimsical. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.” (Publisher Weekly)

What would life be without that occasional silly moment of cracking jokes? So sit back relax and laugh at these jokes that are coming your way!

• What is Tarzan’s favourite Christmas song? JUNGLE- BELLS
• What do you call an exploding monkey?  A BABOOM

And finally…..

• What’s the difference between bogies and broccoli? KIDS DON’T EAT BROCCOLI! Yikes!

If you’d like to get some more laughs check out the book “Horrid Henry’s Mighty Joke Book” by Francesca Simon. Go on you know you want to!