Happy Christmas

Jordanhill Library closes at 5pm on 23rd December. The University officially opens again on 5th January, but we have 3 open days in between: Thursday-Friday 29th and 30th December and Wednesday 4th January. See our opening hours page for full details.

I'm leaving you with these festive images courtesy of Bridgeman Education:

Many thanks to Bridgeman - very suitable for a children's literature blog. A Happy Christmas to one and all.

 

Behind the Bookshelf

Behind the Bookshelf is a great new initiative from Books for Keeps which offers a way of bring an author into your classroom virtually. It's not free - it's £99 for a year if you join before 15/1/12, but for that you get unlimited access to over 150 inspirational video clips, with your own account, plus teachers notes, creative writing courses, and lots of hints and tips. However, Books for Keeps has a competition to win three free subscriptions.

Of course, for completely free author material, look no further than Scottish Book Trust, especially their Meet our Authors and Teaching Resources sections.

Bali Rai

Bali Rai is an author of teenage novels, largely inspired by his working class Punjabi / Sikh background (in Leicester) but accessible to everyone. He recently finished a stint as Writer in Residence at MyVoice, a  creative reading and writing programme for young people run by The Reading Agency, and is now Online Writer in Residence at Booktrust*. Read his last post for MyVoice and his first for Booktrust and you will find a passionate advocate for young people and the roles of reading and literacy (and libraries) in helping them develop their full potential. We have some of his books in stock here.

In The Crew, meet tough and street-smart Ellie, Jas, Della, Will and Billy. They're the Crew, and they live in what they call the Ghetto - the city centre estates where everyone is skint and it's important to stick together. One day they find a fortune in notes and life suddenly becomes very dangerous.

In Dream on Baljit is mad about football and dreams of playing for Liverpool, much to the disapproval of his parents, so when he is invited to trials at Leicester City, he has to lie about his whereabouts.

(Un)arranged marriage, set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, is a perceptive and up-to-date glimpse into a young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and an arranged marriage that he rejects.

 

*PS talking of Booktrust, it has a recently revamped website which is worth looking at, especially the children's books and books for teens sites.

Scorsese films Hugo

There was a glitzy premiere this week for Martin Scorsese's new film, his first in 3D, Hugo - But did you know it was based on a book we have in the library? The invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznic (Scholastic, 2007) is a beautiful book for the 9+ age group - it might look dauntingly thick, but much of it is taken up with black and white illustrations, so its already quite filmic in quality. It tells the story of Hugo, an orphan and a thief, who lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station. He desperately believes a broken automation will make his dreams come true, but when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy.

The movie has its own website where you can watch the trailer, and you can borrow the book from us - find it at J 808.3 SEL.

Bookbug - a Julia Donaldson book for every P1 child

Julia Donaldson and Dillon Ryan (5) from Lochside primary School in Angus, celebrate the gifting of Julia’s award-winning book, What the Ladybird Heard, to every P1 child in Scotland, through Scottish Book Trust’s Bookbug programme. It was also announced at the event that Julia has agreed to become patron of the Bookbug book gifting programme. 

Scottish Book Trust has announced that it will gift a free book to every P1 child in Scotland this November as part of its Bookbug programme, an early year’s initiative that aims to give every child in Scotland a lifelong love of books. 60,000 copies of What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson, winner of the 2010 Scottish Children's Book Awards, have been distributed to classrooms around the country.

Children entering P1 should already have received three free packs of books from Bookbug at 6 weeks, 18 months, and three years, and so should be familiar with the programme, formerly known as Bookstart. Primary One is the final intervention point.

Scottish Book Trust has also announced that multi-award winning author and Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson, has agreed to be patron of the Bookbug programme. Donaldson, who was born in London but now lives in Glasgow, is most famous for her best-selling picture book, The Gruffalo, which was made into an Oscar-nominated animated film last year. To date she has written 160 books.

More information: 

BookbugSessions take place at local libraries or community groups. These are free, fun-filled story and rhyme sessions for 0-4-year-olds.

Teacher resources to support the gifting of What the Ladybird Heard, including posters, games and fun ideas based on themes in the book, are available to download from Scottish Book Trust’s website.

A video of Julia reading What the Ladybird Heard is also available.

Murderous Maths with Kjartan Poskitt

Scottish Book Trust is having another of its "Authors Live" online events next Thursday (1st December, 11-1140am). This time it features Kjartan Poskitt, a mathematician like no other, who will entertain pupils with maths tricks, crack them up with jokes about mathematical formulae and engage them with complex algebra. The event is suitable for children aged 8-14 and if you register your class to watch before Thursday you could win a set of Kjartan's Murderous Maths books - but if you don't win them, check the list of his books that we have here in Jordanhill Library. If you miss the live event you can watch or download the video afterwards using the same link as above.

Kjartan is a freelance everything. Since getting his engineering degree he has worked on Saturday morning TV (including BBC's Swap Shop!), presented science and maths programmes, warmed up thousands of studio audiences, toured his one man show, played a lot of pub pianos very loudly and has been Widow Twankey. In recent months he has been touring the country demonstrating mathematical tricks and oddities from his books. These have been translated in up to 20 languages and include the Murderous Maths series, The Gobsmacking Galaxy, Isaac Newton and his Apple, the Warp Maze with cartoonist Stephen Appleby, four books in his notorious Killer Puzzles series, handbooks on practical jokes and secret codes, six support books for the BBC Schools series Megamaths and a GCSE maths guide. He has also written songs and scripts and worked as a games consultant for a wide range of children's TV shows. 

This nationwide event is part of the Meet our Authors programme, run by Scottish Book Trust and sponsored by Scottish Friendly Assurance. There is also a Meet our Authors Facebook page where you will find background information, interviews, video clips and weblinks all about the programme, plus a great competition for each of the events which you can enter (Facebook account needed).