Here’s some great new kids fiction to read as Autumn starts to settle in

The warm summer days will be coming to an end, so what a great chance to read these great new fiction choices available through your library!

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsUnexpected twist; An Oliver Twisted tale by Michael Rosen

Shona and her dad are moving house, and at Shona’s new school, the rules are pretty confusing; she keeps getting into trouble without realizing! It’s a lot like how it is for Oliver Twist, that boy she’s reading about in English class. After Shona is unexpectedly given a mobile phone, she begins to suspect there’s something fishy about the new boys she’s met. Where did the phone come from? And some gifts, she soon learns, aren’t exactly free…


Image courtesy of SyndeticsInto the Jungle by Matt Forbeck

The Harpers have lost one of their own, a legendary adventurer named Artus Cimber, keeper of the artifact known as the Ring of Winter. They’ve hired you to travel to the jungle-clad land of Chult and find him. If only you can manage it before the frost giants hunting for him do — and before the zombies that infest the lands get you…


Image courtesy of SyndeticsPearl the Proper Unicorn by Sally Odgers

Pearl, Olive and Tweet meet another unicorn! His name is Prince Percy and he is positively perfect in every way! But when mean, smelly gobble-uns take over the pond, can Prince Percy’s perfect magic help them? Or will Pearl’s magic be just what they need?


Image courtesy of SyndeticsThe Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman’s stirring middle-grade debut. Life is harsh in Chennai’s teeming streets, so when runaway sisters Viji and Ruku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter-and friendship-on an abandoned bridge. With two homeless boys, Muthi and Arul, the group forms a family of sorts. And while making a living scavenging the city’s trash heaps is the pits, the kids find plenty to laugh about and take pride in too. After all, they are now the bosses of themselves and no longer dependent on untrustworthy adults. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom.


Image courtesy of SyndeticsThe train to impossible places by P.G Bell

Join the journey to Impossible Places, where there’s magic at every stop… Suzy is surprised to find a grumpy troll building a railway through her house – especially when a gigantic steam train crashes into her hallway! This is the Impossible Postal Express, the trusty delivery service of the Union of Impossible Places, and Suzy becomes its newest recruit. And with her cursed first package, an Impossible adventure begins.–Provided by publisher.

Top 10 recommended children’s Halloween movies for 2018

Hey kids! Halloween is just around the corner and Wellington City Libraries has some spooktacular DVDs in the collection for your viewing pleasure and frightful night in.

Check out this year’s top 10 Halloween movies for kids that is guaranteed to make you scream… sometimes of fear or laughter!

Let the scare fest begin!

Enjoy!… and Happy Halloween.

Goosebumps.

Based on the popular series by R.L. Stine, Goosebumps comes to life on the small screen. After moving to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper discovers that his new friend, Hannah’s mysterious dad is in fact R.L. Stine, the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series and holds a dangerous secret that bridges the gap between fiction and reality.

Also check out the trailer to the sequel: Goosebumps 2: Haunted 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.


image courtesy of amazon.comMonsters Inc and Monsters University.

Mike Wazowski and James “Sulley”  P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn’t always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn’t stand each other. Monsters University unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

In Monsters Inc, Lovable Sulley and Mike Wazowski are the top scare team at MONSTERS, INC., the scream-processing factory in Monstropolis. When a little girl named Boo wanders into their world, monsters are scared silly, and it’s up to Sulley and Mike to get her back home. But Boo’s presence is more than just a mere accident. Now, Mike and Sulley have to face an enemy within their own ranks. Overall a heart-warming movie where guaranteed to scare and make you laugh.


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.


The Boxtrolls.

A community of quirky, mischievous creatures who have lovingly raised an orphaned human boy named Eggs in the amazing cavernous home they’ve built beneath the streets of Cheesebridge. The town’s villain, Archibald Snatcher, comes up with a plot to get rid of the Boxtrolls, so Eggs decides to venture above ground, ‘into the light,’ where he meets and teams up with feisty Winnie. Together, they devise a daring plan to save Eggs’ family.


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.


Hotel Transylvania 1 and 2, and 3.

The Hotel Transylvania, run by Dracula, is a unique, high-end resort catering only to the finest monsters and their families. Check out The Hotel Transylvania trilogy and watch all three films back to back starting with the original film, where 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. In third film, A monster vacation, The monster family embarks on a vacation on a luxury monster cruise ship so Drac can take a summer vacation from providing everyone else’s vacation at the hotel. It’s smooth sailing for Drac’s Pack as the monsters indulge in all of the shipboard fun the cruise has to offer. But the dream vacation turns into a nightmare when Mavis realizes Drac has fallen for the mysterious captain of the ship, Ericka, who hides a dangerous secret that could destroy all of monster kind.


image courtesy of amazon.comHarry Potter and the philosopher’s stone… and the chamber of secrets.

An oldie but a goodie, watch Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone and relive the magic where Harry learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own, becoming a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards and having to battle some “enemies” along the way. In the Chamber of Secrets, Harry finds the second year more challenging with flying cars, trees fighting back, duelling clubs  and a fifty year old secret that threatens to destroy Hogwarts.


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.


image courtesy of amazon.comMonster Island.

When teenager Lucas (voice of Phillip Vasquez) discovers that he is not human as he always thought, his world is turned upside down as he must adapt to being a monster. Not only is Lucas troubled by the fact that his first transformation occurred at school but also that his father had kept him in the dark about his true nature. His frustrations lead Lucas to leave home in pursuit of the fabled Monster Island with the hope of learning the truth about his heritage. His journey brings him into contact with several weird and wonderful individuals, not all of whom have good intentions.

Check out these new children’s fiction Books!

Image courtesy of SyndeticsI am Juliet by Jackie French

The world’s most famous love story told by one of Australia’s most respected authors. This is the well-known story of Juliet Capulet and her love for Romeo. It also the story about the increasing helplessness Juliet feels as she realises that unlike young men her age, her life will effectively be determined and controlled by others, who see her having an arranged marriage of alliance and becoming a breeder of sons. I am Juliet closely follows the well-known and loved plot of the play, but we also see the point of view of Rob, the thirteen-year-old boy who is the first to play the role of Juliet on the Elizabethan stage.

 

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsJelly Baby  by Jean Ure     

A humorous and heart-warming story about a little sister, a big sister, a cat, a dad and…a new girlfriend! Bitsy, or Jelly Baby as she’s sometimes called, has been doing just fine living with Dad and big sister Em since Mum died. The housework may not always get done, and dinners might not always be at the table, but none of them ever minded! Until one day Dad brings home a girlfriend – and everything changes. Now it looks like it might be down to the Jelly Baby of the family to keep it from falling apart.

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsLilac Attack! by Sophie Bell

While sixth-grade superheroes Scarlet, Iris, and Cheri are trying to decide if the formerly evil Opal can be trusted to be an Ultra Violet again, they face a new BeauTek plot, purportedly to beautify Sync City.

 

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsEye of the Gargoyle by Sam Penant

Dax’s parents have put him on a bus to a prison to which he doesn’t belong. Little does he know that this ‘prison’, Scragmoor Prime, is actually a school for superheroes! But Dax Daley doesn’t have any superpowers! Or does he?

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsThe Fastest Boy in the World  by Elizabeth Laird

‘Eleven-year-old Solomon loves to run! The great athletes of the Ethiopian national team are his heroes and he dreams that one day he will be a gold-medal-winning athlete like them, in spite of his ragged shorts and bare feet. When his grandfather announces that he’s going to take Solomon to Addis Ababa, Solomon cannot believe his ears. A trip to the capital? It’s unfathomable. Solomon’s joy is increased when he realizes that the Ethiopian running team will be doing a victory parade through the city that day. Maybe he’ll get a glimpse of Haile Gebrselassie or Derartu Tulu?!

But Solomon’s grandfather has other plans. As Solomon follows him through the big, overwhelming streets, he learns something he cannot believe. The strict old man is a war hero who once risked his life to save a friend and has been in hiding ever since. When grandfather collapses, Solomon knows that getting help from his village is up to him. It’s a twenty-mile run from the city to home, and grandfather’s life hangs in the balance. Can the small bare-footed runner with the big heart do it?’ ; www.Goodreads.com

 

 

Image courtesy of SyndeticsWhat the Moon Said by Gayle Rosengreen

When Esther’s family moves to a farm during the Great Depression, she soon learns that there are things much more important than that her superstitious mother rarely shows her any affection.