Month: April 2020

Happy 90th Birthday, Nancy Drew!

Stephen Clothier

Happy 90th Birthday Nancy Drew!

This teen sleuth has been solving mysteries in and around her fictional home town of River Heights since April 1930! 

Starting with The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and The Bungalow Mystery which were all released on April 28, 1930, there have been over 500 (what!?) books written by a variety of authors under the pen name of Carolyn Keene. 

Since the original 56 tales, there have been multiple rewritings and spin offs including the most recent series of ‘Nancy Drew Diaries’ which can be found as eBooks and eAudio on OverDrive/Libby (and on library shelves when we reopen) These stories are reimagined in the 21st century and have been updated to consider technology and other modernities that didn’t exist when the original series was written. After all, many of Nancy’s original exploits could easily have been solved simply by owning a cellphone!

Nancy has been a strong female role-model on screen as well, with a film series starting in the 1930s, a TV series (with the Hardy Boys) in the 1970s, a film in 2007, and a new series whose first season aired just last year!

There are also cool Nancy Drew computer games by HER interactive – which are full of tricky logic puzzles and mini games. I’m halfways through “The Tomb of the Lost Queen” set in Egypt, where Nancy is working as an intern on an archaeological dig, and I’ll admit it’s a struggle to pull myself away. I’ll also admit I’ve had to Google walkthrough instructions at least twice when I’ve gotten stuck! Sadly, the games aren’t free, but a bunch of them are discounted during lockdown, so if you’re looking for something that will balance homeschool learning, and educational screen time – they’re challenging and fun for adults and kids! 

If you haven’t read and Nancy yet – give her a go, if you like mysteries and strong female characters – she’s still an awesome read – even after 90 years. Here are some of our favourite Nancy Drew titles available now on OverDrive:

Overdrive cover The Secret of the Old Clock, Carolyn Keene (ebook)

A special treat for Nancy Drew fans! Out just in time for Nancy’s 80th anniversary, we’re releasing a limited number of copies of The Secret of the Old Clock, the first book in the series. It’s the exciting mystery that readers have fallen in love with for 80 years, with a terrific new look and bonus material! Collectors won’t want to miss this.

(Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover The Baby-Sitter Burglaries, Carolyn Keene (ebook)

Nancy tries to prove that a babysitter is being framed when three houses in River Heights are robbed–and the only connection the police can find is that the babysitter was employed at each.

(Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover The Puppy Problem, Carolyn Keene (Audiobook)

The Nancy Drew Notebooks enchant listeners with the antics of 8-year-old supersleuth Nancy Drew and her friends George and Bess. Nancy has a new puppy that needs lots of training, patience, and love. But when the chocolate-chip muffins go missing, Nancy’s new puppy is blamed. The girls know that the puppy is innocent and they are determined to find the real thief.

(Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover Famous Mistakes, Carolyn Keene (ebook)
Nancy and her friends are out to find a comedian’s saboteur in this seventeenth book of the Nancy Drew Diaries, a fresh approach to the classic mystery series. Complex social media charts, undercover outfits, and intense button study send Nancy, Bess, George, and Ned on a wild ride through River Heights to uncover the truth about missing comedian Brady Owens. But nothing is what it seems in this game of comedic timing. Can Nancy find the culprit before it’s too late?

(adapted from Overdrive description)

Dive Into Online Activities with Your Favourite Authors!

Sue Jane

As we move into Level 3 of the nationwide lockdown, I was curious to know what some authors were doing with their time. I decided to do some online searching, and it was fascinating! Not only are there some very creative authors out there, but I also kept getting side-tracked by all the other groovy stuff that’s being created and shared online at this time. It reminded me of diving into a very deep swimming pool of creativity.

Maybe you could “go swimming” yourself, with a parent or caregiver on hand to keep you safe online of course!

Here’s some of the great activities and webpages I discovered, so this might be a good place to start your swim:

Dav Pilkey – author of Dogman and Captain Underpants books and so much more has created a fantastic lockdown activities page, Dav Pilkey At Home, on the Scholastic Books website. This page is chock full of videos, activities, and things to draw, read and write to keep you occupied during lockdown. While you’re checking out Dav Pilkey At Home, why not read Dav Pilkey’s books online through our eLibrary?

Overdrive coverOverdrive coverOverdrive cover

Fifi Colston is not only an amazing NZ children’s author, but she’s a wonderfully creative artist as well. Check out her Fifi Colston Creative Pandemic Resources page for a huge range of really creative craft activities you can do with stuff you find at home. For example, see below for an incredibly cool project you can do with nothing but empty toilet paper rolls and a couple of other bits and bobs

Image credit: Fifi Colston – Pots of Love

Finally, don’t forget to check out local school websites as well. Wellington’s Raroa Normal Intermediate School library website has a very deep pool of at-home resources and activities to swim amongst, and it was here that I really started to swim down some side streams and waterways! They’ve aptly named their page Rāhui Resources.

Here are just a couple of pages I freestyled my way into from Rāhui Resources:

  • New Zealand Geographic magazine have put together an awesome Together at Home page with something new to explore in this beautiful country of ours for every day of lockdown.
  • And life just wouldn’t be complete without a few comics to enjoy. SJL.com (School Library Journal) have put up some free kids and teen comics for you to enjoy including the popular Cucumber Quest, Ozy and Millie and Wormworld Saga comic books.

Finally, just because… if you’ve got an iPad at home, why not try your hand at some blackout poetry:

Here’s my blackout poem using this Stuff News KEA Kids News article

Celebrating in lockdown,
Special day, cake, video chats
A happy family wish to you.
Our planet healthier
Growing native plants
In this unusual time.

Keep safe, and remember — wash your hands!

Family Lockdown Challenge: Stand Apart Together this ANZAC Day

Katie

We will be celebrating ANZAC Day differently this year. ANZAC Services are cancelled for the first time in 104 years. However there are many ways for you you can honor our fallen and returned soldiers from the safety of your doorstep. You can:

Virtual Dawn Service:image courtesy of standatdawn.com

Take part in Stand at Dawn. Stand at your letterbox, at the front door, your lounge rooms, etc, on Saturday 25th April at 6am to remember our fallen. The official dawn service starts at 6am on Saturday 25 April. It will be broadcasted on Radio NZ National. The morning service includes the Last Post, National Anthems, and an address by Hon. Ron Mark, Minister of Defence / Minister for Veterans. For more information about the virtual dawn service and other online events, please visit the Wellington City Council website.

Activities for kids:

You can make poppies at home. image courtesy of standatdawn.comYou can place them on your window, decorate your letter box and even create you own poppy garden. For more ideas, visit the Stand at Dawn Activities page. 

Bake ANZAC Biscuits:image courtesy of standatdawn.com

People are making the most of their time with cooking and baking since lockdown. Why not bake some yummy ANZAC biscuits with your whanau and serve them out of the oven with a nice cup of tea after the dawn service. Click here to view the recipe.

ANZAC Fact: The biscuits were sent by wives and women’s groups to soldiers abroad because the ingredients did not spoil and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation.

Watch the Ballet from your living room:

Watch the ballet, with your ANZAC biscuit and cup of tea, from confort of your own bubble… and living room. image courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/nzballet/The Royal New Zealand Ballet will be livestreaming on Facebook a special broadcast of ‘Dear Horizon’ and ‘Passchendaele’, two works that were commissioned for our Salute programme back in 2015 and performed live with the New Zealand Army Band, to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. For more information, visit the Royal New Zealand Ballet Facebook page and website.

Read up on the ANZACs and Anzac Day?

ManyAnswers has a page dedicated to websites, resources and ways to search for information about the ANZACs and ANZAC Day. You can also refer to last year’s blog post and this previous post, which  provides a list of websites that will provide you with reliable information about ANZAC Day and World War 1.
Remember stay safe in your bubble, stay at home and be kind. Kia kaha!

Overdrive Kids: The Wonderful World of Children’s Comics!

Katie 1 Comment

As Wellington City Libraries enters another week of being closed, even more awesome new titles are being added all the time through our Kids’ Reading Room on Overdrive! If you like comics, graphic novels, cartoon strips and manga, why not give our collection of kids’ comics a try? Check out titles such as:

image courtesy of syndeticsChi’s Sweet Home by Konami Kanata.

Read all about Chi, a lovable and curious kitten who adopted by the Yamada family, who gets up to mischief and many adventures while making new friends along the way. A librarian’s choice and a delightful comic for cat lovers!
image courtesy of syndeticsGuts by Raina Telgemeier.

Raina Telgemeier is back, once again bringing us a thoughtful, charming, and funny true story about tummy problems,  growing up and gathering the courage to face — and conquer — her fears. A delightful and humorous comic and librarian’s choice all the way!

image courtesy of syndeticsArchie Modern Classics Volume One by Archie Superstars.

An oldie but a goodie! Read all about Archie and the Riverdale gang in this collection of the best stories from 2018. One modern classic you don’t want to miss out on! 
image courtesy of syndeticsJohnny Boo: The Best Little Ghost in the world by James Kochalka.

Read all about Johnny Boo, the best little ghost in the whole world, with Boo Power and his adventures alongside his pet ghost named Squiggle. With ghost races, wild loop the loops and even an Ice Cream Monster, there is never a dull moment in this delightful comic book.


image courtesy of syndeticsStrawberry Shortcake Volume One Issue One by Georgia Ball.

Bring a little Strawberry Shortcake into your life with this amazing comic! Read all about how Strawberry Shortcake’s solution to a tropical dilemma convinces her friends that she’s taking a trip to Luau Island. Sounds like a dream vacation, but in the middle of all of the excitement, the residents of Berry Bitty City forget to check their facts before they bid farewell! Ideal for girls and Strawberry shortcake fans!

If you want to borrow these amazing comics and more from our collection of kids comics, all you need is a Wellington City Libraries membership — click here if you don’t have a library card and would like to join online.

Family Lockdown Challenge: Bubble Scavenger Hunts!

Merritt 2 Comments

Are you looking for something to fill in a spare hour at home? Or maybe you need an activity to do on your daily walk around your neighbourhood. Have you considered a scavenger hunt?

An example of a scavenger hunt you could make at home!

A scavenger hunt is so much easier than a treasure hunt, because you don’t have to make any clues or hide any treasure! You just create a list of things to find, then get searching.

When you’re creating your list you can be as vague or specific as you like, from a red leaf or yellow flower, to something that makes a noise or something you use at school. You can give your scavenger hunts different themes too, from things inside the house (if it’s a rainy day!), to things out in your garden, or even things connected by a theme such as technology, pets, or colour. If your theme is colour, you can use the same list for every colour of the rainbow!

If you’re doing your scavenger hunt within your bubble at home, then of course you’re free to gather together all the objects you find. If you’ve created a scavenger hunt to complete while you’re out on a walk, picking things up and carrying them around isn’t the best idea at the moment. We suggest you just tick off or write down what you see, or you can turn it into a photo challenge and take pictures of all the things you find. Or you can join in the nation-wide Bear Hunt, and count how many Teddy Bears you can see in your neighbours’ windows.

Another idea is a literary scavenger hunt! Challenge yourself to read books on different subjects, by different authors, and about different characters. Can you read a book with a bear in it? How about a turtle, or one by a New Zealand author?

If you want some inspiration, check out the scavenger hunts that we’ve created to inspire you:

So get to it! Challenge yourself, or send one off and challenge your friends. We’d love to see what you come up with, so show us what you’ve been up to on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!

Real Time, Real Person, Real Help with your Schoolwork

Stephen Clothier

Note: this Kids’ Blog post is targeted at adults! Kids read on with caution.

In these strange new times, teachers, parents and other educators are looking to the Internet for homework help and educational resources to keep their kids’ brains active while schools are closed. Good news! The library can be an invaluable resource for anybody who is trying online education at this time, above and beyond eBooks and online databases. How? Enter AnyQuestions.

Have any questions? Why not try AnyQuestions!

AnyQuestions is a service run by the National Library and staffed by public librarians from around New Zealand, including Wellington City Libraries. On it, children are able to chat in real-time with a real librarian fully trained in web-based research about any question they might have. The librarian working with your child won’t just give them the answer directly — instead, they guide the student through the process of doing online research, checking their understanding every step of the way.

For the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the service’s opening hours are at the normal settings, with librarians on hand to help every weekday from 1pm – 6pm.

If you prefer to work outside those hours, or just want a place to find great resources, try AnyQuestions’ sister site, ManyAnswers. This is a service also provided by the National Library and public librarians, and it’s a fully searchable, always-available database of reliable information and vetted resources for the most commonly-asked questions we receive. You can even search by year level to make sure you’re getting information that’s curated for the right level.

Both services are available year-round, so why not start making use of them today?

Family Lockdown Challenge: Colouring Adventures!

Stephen Clothier

Our next Family Lockdown Challenge is as simple as it gets — get those pencils, felts, crayons, pastels, paints or dyes out and get colouring! For your socially-distant enjoyment, a very cool and talented librarian here has created this awesome colouring book — from the power of her imagination, to your bubble! Click the button at the top left to download it and colour at home.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to complete this colouring book with your family. Maybe Mum and Dad have to do all the vowels. Why not share with friends or family outside your bubble and have a Skype colouring session? Challenge yourself to use ALL THE COLOURS, or maybe just one! That’s the beauty of colouring — it is what you make it. You can find even more fun activities on our Kids’ Downloads page.

Take a photo of your whānau participating in this challenge, or photograph or scan your completed colouring — we’d love to see what you do! Message us or tag us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) so we can see what you’ve done, and marvel at your talents!

Stay tuned for the next Family Lockdown Challenge, where things are starting to get a little… mysterious.

Family Lockdown Challenge: Kanopy Kids!

Stephen Clothier

So, in our last editions of the Family Lockdown Challenge, we’ve covered everything from reading and writing to building and doing. But did you know that the library is also your hub for movies and TV?

Enter Kanopy Kids. (Please note that logging in to Kanopy Kids requires an adult library membership. Click here if you do not have a current adult membership). Kanopy Kids is the library’s online streaming platform for kids’ movies, TV shows, animated storytimes, and more. The best part? It’s all free, and you have unlimited watch time. On the adult version of Kanopy, you get 6 watch credits a month, but on Kanopy Kids, it’s all movies, all the time.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to watch a movie or an animated storytime on Kanopy Kids as a family, and then create a response to it. You could draw a picture, write a review, reenact your favourite scene, do a fact file on your favourite character — the world is your oyster! We’d love to see what you come up with, so please get in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to show off your creative skills!

Explore and enjoy!

Family Lockdown Challenge: Kids’ Club eBook Reviews

Stephen Clothier

Our last two Family Lockdown Challenges have focussed on things you can do and things you can build from the comfort of your own bubble. For this next one, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your chair. Read on to find out more!

Libraries, as I’m sure you know, are generally known for having books. Heaps and heaps and heaps of books. And even though our buildings are closed, making the 800,000-odd books they hold unavailable for now, we still have plenty of books for you — eBooks! Our eBook services, like OverDrive, BorrowBox, and more, are available 24/7 from the eLibrary — all you need is your library card number and PIN, and you’re set.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to borrow a book from our eLibrary, write a book review, and post it to the Kids’ Club review section on this very blog. At the top of the screen, click Kids’ Club, then follow the instructions to access the review form and submit it! Once that’s all done, and your review has been read by one of our lovely librarians, it will be published online for everyone to read.

Even better, once our libraries reopen, you’ll be able to redeem your book reviews for special prizes from your local library. The more reviews you write, the more prizes you’ll earn. How awesome is that?!

Did you know that eBooks can fly? They fly right around our heads until they land in your device, ready to be read!

Before you all rush off to write your first review, here are a couple of words about writing a good book review:

  • Tell us what you thought about the book! We don’t want to just read a description of the plot.
  • Useful questions to ask yourself include:
    • How did I feel at the beginning of the book?
    • How did I feel at the end? Was there a change?
    • Who was my favourite/least favourite character? Why?
    • Did this book give me any new ideas? If so, what are they?
    • Who else might like this book? Why?
    • If I had written this book, would I have changed anything about it? What, and why?
  • Be creative! We love to read reviews in the form of poems, short stories, reviews written with emojis.
  • Be careful with the boring things like spelling and punctuation. This isn’t school — you won’t be disqualified if you spell “discombobulated” wrong — but having good spelling and punctuation makes it easier for everyone else to understand what you mean!

While you’re writing your reviews, don’t forget to read through other kids’ reviews too — there are thousands and thousands of them and who knows, you may just find a book you’d like to read yourself! Happy reading!