Top 10 Recommended Halloween movies for kids.

Hey kids! Halloween is just around the corner (AHHHWWOOOOOO!) Wellington City Libraries has some spooktacular DVDs in the collection for your viewing pleasure and frightful night in. Let the scare fest begin!

Enjoy!… and Happy Halloween.

Casper.

Join Casper the friendly ghost is a kind young ghost who peacefully haunts a mansion in Maine. When specialist James Harvey (Bill Pullman) arrives to communicate with Casper and his fellow spirits, he brings along his teenage daughter, Kat (Christina Ricci). Casper quickly falls in love with Kat, but their budding relationship is complicated not only by his transparent state, but also by his troublemaking apparition uncles and their mischievous antics.

Frankenweenie.

What if you could bring your pets back to life? Young Victor successfully proves that theory when he revives his best friend back to life. However problems emerge when his class mates want follow suit in bringing their pets to life and ensues disastrous consequences. Overall a heart-warming and hilarious tale about how far a boy will go for his best friend. A must see movie for Halloween.

Coraline.

A young girl walks through a secret door that she has found in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life, but much better. When her adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents, including the Other Mother, try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home – and save her family.

image courtesy of amazon.com

Shrek’s thrilling tales.

Join Shrek, Donkey, Puss and B.O.B. as they get the fright of their lives in five spooktacular stories the will keep you howling with laughter. It’s a Shrektastic halloween treat that’s ogre-the-top fun for the whole family.

 

Toy story of terror!

What starts out as an exciting road trip for the Toy Story gang takes an unexpected turn for the worse following a detour to a roadside motel. After Mr. Potato Head suddenly disappears, his friends find themselves caught up in a hilarious mystery that must be solved before they suffer the same fate in this thrilling story of TERROR!

image courtesy of amazon.comThe Goonies.

“From the imagination of Steven Spielberg, The Goonies plunges a band of small heroes into a swashbuckling, surprise-around-every-corner quest beyond their wildest dreams! Following a mysterious treasure map into a spectacular underground realm of twisting passages, outrageous booby-traps and a long-lost pirate ship full of golden doubloons, the kids race to stay one step ahead of bumbling bad guys… and a mild-mannered monster with a face only a mother could love. A family adventure classic from start to buccaneering finish, The Goonies is a cinematic treasure trove of breathtaking action, dazzling effects and shiver-yer-timber thrills!” –Container.

Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2.

The Hotel Transylvania, run by Dracula, is a unique, high-end resort catering only to the finest monsters and their families. Dracula is preparing for an extra special weekend – his daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday – when trouble arises: a human has stumbled upon the resort for the first time ever! Even worse: the human has taken a liking to Mavis!  In the sequel, everything seems to be changing for the better at Hotel Transylvania. Dracula’s rigid monster-only hotel policy has finally relaxed, opening up its doors to human guests. But behind closed coffins, Drac is worried that his adorable half-human, half-vampire grandson, Dennis, isn’t showing signs of being a vampire.

 

The Witches.

Nine-year-old Luke finds that saving the world from witches is a tall order for a boy who has been turned into a mouse.

Monster High. Ghouls rule.

Ghouls Rule unearths an old conflict between ‘Normies’ and monsters – and things are about to get scary. For years, students at Monster High were warned that Halloween was a night to stay inside and avoid conflict at all costs. But Frankie and her friends discover that ghouls and ‘Normies’ once loved to spend the holiday together. The ghouls decide to turn back the clock and use the night to celebrate their individuality and show that it’s okay to ‘Be Yourself. Be Unique. Be a Monster’.

Room on the broom.

“The story of a kind witch who invites a surprising collection of animals to join her on her broom, much to the frustration of her cat. When the gang saves the witch from a fearsome dragon she rewards them with a magnificent new broom which has room for everyone!”–Container. Based on the book by Julia Donaldson.

Talk Like a Pirate!

Well “Shiver me timbers” and “Hoist the mainsail” it’s International Talk Like a Pirate day on Tuesday the 19th of September! So how good is your pirate language? Ever wanted to learn how to speak pirate? Well now you can through Mango Languages! If you go to My Gateway on the Library website: www.wcl.govt.nz/mygateway then select Mango Languages on the database, put in your library card number and surname, then select Pirate you’ll come up with the “Booty”! Soon you’ll be confounding your teachers and classmates by asking them to “Belay yer carsouin’ and haul wind smartly”. So try introducing yourself on Tuesday as “A fine gentleman of fortune, I may tell ye plainly” and see how many people turn tail and run before they have to walk the plank!

Want to find out more about the real pirates who sailed the seven seas? We have loads of books with information about what really happened on the high seas. There were many famous pirates such as Captain Kid and Blackbeard who I most definitely would not want to have met! But did you know that there were female pirates as well? Anne Bonny was one of the most famous and could handle a cutlass as well as any man. Lots of interesting facts to find out about pirates in this book, “The Everything Pirate book: A swashbuckling history of adventure on the high seas” by Barb Karg and Arjean Spaite.

Have you ever read “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson? “When young Jim Hawkins is left a treasure map by the dying buccaneer Billy Bones, he sets sail on the Hispaniola in search of the island. Among the crew, the one-legged Long John Silver becomes his greatest friend, but Silver has a shocking secret in store, and when they reach their destination, Jim faces danger and adventure greater than he could ever have imagined.” A truly great read! Continue reading

Digging up the past with these great children’s books

Have you ever dreamed of travelling back in time, to meet famous heroes, brave warriors, wise queens, or your own long-dead ancestors?

Have you wandered round museums admiring giant statues, glittering jewels, and mysterious mummies? Do you wonder who made them – and how, when, where and why?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then you share a vision with many adventurous archaeologist – men and women with a passion to find out about the past.

These people travel the globe in search of lost cities and buried treasures. They decipher ancient carvings and dusty documents. They learn exciting new skills and experiment with the latest technology to find out what life was like long ago. Their work takes them to all kinds of places – from deep, dark oceans to high mountaintops.

So come along for the ride and help dig up the past.