Arabic Language Day and New Books in Arabic!

ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ!

The 18th of December marks the United Nations Arabic Language Day. Did you know that there are over 300 million native Arabic speakers worldwide?

This makes the Arabic language one of the most widely spoken languages in the word.

It is spoken by a diverse range of people across the African continent and the Middle East, including Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, and many more. At Wellington City Libraries we’re lucky enough to offer our community a wide selection of books in Arabic for everyone to enjoy!

Here is our librarian, Khadro, showing us two more brand new Arabic books in the Newtown Library collection:

A smiling librarian, wearing a colourful facemask and hijab, is holding two beautiful picture books in Arabic. Behind her, you can see the children's world languages collection at Newtown Library, with lots of books in colourful shelving and comfortable seats nearby.

Our friendly librarians love helping you find good books to read!

Here are some of our favourite books for children in Arabic. Click on the title to find out more. If the book you want is in a library that is too far away, you can click ‘Place Reserve‘ to have it sent to a library which is closer, where you can pick it up.

Mā arwaʻ al-ṭaʻām = Food, food, fabulous food / Clynes, Kate
A fun story about the diversity of food and all the ways it enriches our lives. Food brings people together from all walks of life and is a great way to connect with each other.

Ikhtalafat fa-tamayyazatu / Nājim, Alāʼ Saʻd

Our Differences are Distinguished: This story is a dive into everything that makes us different and unique. Through music the characters of this book learn that there are different ways to express themselves.

Time to pray = Awqāt al-ṣalāh / Addasi, Maha

This story follows young Yasmin as she learns about one of the core tenants of her religion: prayer. It also teaches Yasmin the importance of family and community.

Samakat qaws qazah = The rainbow fish. / Pfister, Marcus

Leaning to share your beauty with others makes everyone shine. This classic tale is now available in English and Arabic for new and native Arabic speakers to enjoy.

Ayyuhā al-dub al-asmar, ayyuhā al-dub al-asmar mādhā tará? / Martin, Bill

I see a bear, what about you? A fun rhyming book that covers all the bases, from magical blue horses to cute purple cats. This book has it all.

Click here to see more Arabic children’s books at Wellington City Libraries

Joining the Library is free! You can take these books home for three weeks and then get some new ones! If you would like to learn more, here is some information about how to join the library, written in Arabic.

Summer Reading Tips: The Community Reading Goal

Kia ora! The Summer Reading Adventure is now in full swing, and hundreds of you have already started logging your reading, writing or drawing book reviews, and completing quests in the name of honour and glory. Hurrah!

You might have noticed that on the Summer Reading Adventure website, if you scroll down just a little bit, you’ll see a live counter that looks a little like this:

A live ticker on the Summer Reading Adventure website, with a progress bar that is 20% full and text saying "It's dangerous to go alone! Let's work together to reach this community reading goal."

Did you catch the reference to The Legend of Zelda games? There are classic gaming references hidden everywhere on the Summer Reading Adventure website — can you find them all?

This counter tells us how many books the kids of Wellington have read so far on their Summer Reading Adventures. We have set a goal for us to read 5,000 books together before the 31st of January — and yes, you read that correctly, we’ve already read over 1,000 books! After just one week! Ka pai tō mahi, that is amazing!

What happens when we reach our Community Reading Goal? Well, the text on the left will change, for one thing. So that’s cute. But as for other effects, you’ll just have to wait and see!

The Summer Reading Challenge 2020-21 has ended

With the coming of February, the 2020-21 Summer Reading Challenge has officially ended. Huge congratulations to everyone who took part! This year, over 100 kids earned special book prizes for their achievements as part of the Challenge — ka rawe to all of you! We really enjoyed reading all of your book reviews and seeing all of the Book Bingo challenges you completed. A massive thanks as well to our friends at Marsden Books in Karori, the Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie, and Unity Books in the CBD for providing the books we were able to award you all.

Several piles of brand-new children's books, including picture books, fiction, nonfiction, and comics

A sample of some of the books won by our intrepid readers this summer!

Right now, the cogs are whirring and the calculators calculating as we undertake the massive task of figuring out who our Grand Prize Winner and School Prize Winner will be. Stay tuned for more announcements on the library website and on social media later in February — the winner could be you!

The Summer Reading Challenge Continues!

Another year begins, and our Summer Reading Challenge continues! If all the book reviews you’ve been writing are anything to go by, you guys have been reading like absolute machines all throughout this beautiful Wellington summer. It has been wonderful reading all of your reviews and hearing about what you’ve enjoyed (or not so much!) about the books you’ve been reading.

It’s not too late to get involved! The Summer Reading Challenge is still running, and will keep running until the 31st of January 2021! There are heaps of prizes to be won just by reading books from our Summer Reading Challenge booklist — just see the photo below for a teensy tiny glimpse into our instant prize stash! Massive thanks to our friends at Unity Books, Marsden Books, and the Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie for their generous support.

Several piles of brand-new children's books, including picture books, fiction, nonfiction, and comics

This is just a small sample of the awesome book prizes that you can earn — just by reading and reviewing books from our collection!

But, reviewing books isn’t the only way to earn prizes. If you turn over your Summer Reading Challenge booklet, you’ll find a plethora of fun challenges to complete as part of our special Book Bingo challenge. Once you’ve finished off all 9 of the challenges, take your booklet in to your local library to earn a special prize.

A hand-drawn and vibrantly-coloured Dora the Explorer sits beneath the original art from the book.

This beautiful drawing of Dora the Explorer by Aarvi from Johnsonville Library was completed as part of the Book Bingo Challenge! Ka rawe, Aarvi!

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get reading!

Summer Programmes and Events Schedule

Kia ora koutou! The summer holidays are a great time for you to relax, spend some time with whānau, and bask in the sunshine with a good book. Our librarians sometimes like to do this as well, so there will be some changes to our regularly-scheduled events and programmes during Christmas, New Year’s, and January. You can find out where and when everything is happening at the Event Calendar, or the children’s What’s On webpage, but here are the basics for you:


Special Events

Two children sitting underneath a tree, reading a book.

Enjoy the Summer Reading Challenge these school holidays!

During December, we have special Christmas Storytimes for the whole family to enjoy at all 14 of our libraries, and don’t forget that the Summer Reading Challenge is running from now until the end of January! Get stuck in now to earn sweet prizes.

Keep an eye out for our famous BookBike at beaches and parks around the city during those hot January days, and you can also come see us at a wide variety of festivals and events during the summer, including Gardens Magic (12 January – 31 January 2021) and the Wellington Pasifika Festival on 23 January 2021. We’d love to see you there!


Regular Programmes

Baby Rock and Rhyme will be taking a break at all sites from the 11th of December, and making a glorious return on the 1st of February. If you’re itching for that musical fix in your life, our newest library in the CBD, Te Awe on Brandon Street, will keep running Baby Rock and Rhyme until the 16th of December, and return on the 11th of January.

Preschool Storytime and Kōhunga Kōrero will run until the 20th of December at all sites for all your storytelling needs. At our CBD sites, as well as Johnsonville, Tawa, Brooklyn and Wadestown, storytime will resume from the 4th of January. At all other locations, our storytellers will be returning from the 1st of February.

Our LEGO® programmes including Let’s Go LEGO® and LEGO® Time will be on hiatus between the 20th of December and the 1st of February. At Johnsonville, Tawa, and Te Awe Libraries, these programmes will keep running throughout January — yahoo!

Our term-time programmes including Code Club, Tech Time, and CRAFTerschool will start up again in Week 2 of Term 1 2021, to give you time to adjust to being back at school before diving back into library events!


If you have any questions, feel free to contact your local library, or you can email the Children’s Librarian to find out more.

 

Summer Reading Challenge 2020-21!

Snowy the Sandman wishes he could read books for the Summer Reading Challenge, but he only has sunglasses where his eyes should be!

Switch on your reading eyes, grab the nearest cat (the purr-fect reading companion!), and prepare your parents for many bookish bedtimes and beach barbecues — the Summer Reading Challenge is nearly here!

It starts tomorrow, the 1st of December 2020, and runs through to the 31st of January 2021. Your mission: to read as many books as you can from the official Summer Reading Challenge list, which you can download online or pick up from your local library, and complete the 9 brain-bustingly brilliant Book Bingo challenges you’ll find on the back of the booklet. There are lots of instant and major prizes to be won, so get reading quick-smart!

Read the whole story — and get started on the Challenge — at the Summer Reading Challenge page.

So, how many can you read?

That’s a Wrap!

Wow – the Summer Reading Challenge is finished for another year. It was fantastic to see so many great review coming in over the last 8 weeks.

We librarians are busy crunching numbers behind the scenes, and will announce the winners in the next couple of weeks.

There are two main prizes (every review you wrote was one entry into this prize draw), and also a prize for the top school.

If you completed the reading bingo challenge and gave us your booklet, then you will receive a book prize too. You’ll hear from your local librarian soon.

And if you want to now… there were 708 reviews written in total. Cool!

But don’t slow down now! You can keep reading and reviewing (and earning prizes) all year long through our online Kids’ Club (…it’s very similar to the Summer Reading Challenge, but without the big prize draws). Check out our booklists and this blog for some reading inspiration.

Happy New Year from us to you

Happy 2020 bookworms!

What’s your reading goal this year? Is it to read a certain number of books, or try a new topic or author, or to challenge yourself with books that are harder than anything you’ve ever read before…? If you’re looking for some inspiration you could start with the Summer Reading Challenge, which still has almost four weeks left to go – plenty of time to read, review, and win prizes.

The Challenge also includes a Book Bingo with lots of fun reading challenge to tick off.

 

Our newly opened Johnsonville library at the Waitohi Community Hub has loads of new and cool events and activities for you. Check out the library event calendar to find out what’s on (select Johnsonville Library from the location list).

 

 

If you’re still on holiday and can’t make it to the library then make sure you get your reading fix at our eLibrary. You download heaps of eBooks and audiobooks, including Dogman, Harry Potter, Big Nate, Amulet, Captain Underpants, Goosebumps… and more!

 

Changes to programmes over Christmas and January

Hi all,

We know you love taking a break at this time of year, and we do too!

Some of our regular library programmes won’t be available during the holidays. Here’s what is and isn’t happening:


Baby Rock & Rhyme:

There will be no sessions from Monday 16th December to Sunday 2nd February

Preschool Storytime:

There will be no Sessions from Wednesday 25th December to Sunday 5th January.

-Brooklyn Library will start back on Tuesday 14th January.

-Wadestown Library will start back on Monday 27th January.


Kōhunga Kōrero:

All sessions are happening! Check the event calendar to find out when and where.

Let’s Go Lego:

There will be no sessions from 16 December to the end of January.

Except at the new Johnsonville Library at the Waitohi Hub, who will have two sessions of Lego each week during December and January.

Code Club:

This programme runs during school terms only, and will return in February 2020.

Look out for new clubs at the new Johnsonville Library at the Waitohi Hub – including Level 1 and 2 Code Club, and Code Time. Coming soon!


Crafterschool:

This programme runs during school terms only, and will return in February 2020.

Family Movies:

Some sessions are cancelled, and some are still running. It’s best to check the library event calendar to see what’s on and where.

Tech Time:

This programme runs during school terms only, and will return in February 2020.

What is happening?

Have a look in the library event calendar to find out what is happening. There are lots of school holiday and makerspace events happening in the Johnsonville Library.

You can also take part in the Summer Reading Challenge, which is on ow until the end of January.

Going on Holiday? Through our website you can download thousands of books, magazines, movies, TV shows, interactive books and storytimes, and so much more! Click through to our eLibrary to find your next favourite or binge.

 

Marry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Summer Reading Challenge

You can even read a book at the beach!

The 2019 – 2020 Summer Reading Challenge is here!

We challenge you! How many can you read? From 1 December to 31 January you can pick up a challenge booklet from your local library, or download and print, and get Reading, Reviewing and Winning!

An extra special treat for this year… Win more prizes by doing the Book Bingo!

Find out more and get started at the Summer Reading Challenge page.