Mrs Mac's Book Blog

This year is quite eventful as far as books and reading goes. We have our first ever Children’s Laureates….something which is well known in the UK and US, but not so much in Australia. Our first laureates have recently been announced – Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor, whose books we hold in our school library. I’ll post events regarding both authors as they come to hand.

2012 is also Australia’s ‘National Year of Reading’ and although it appears to have got off to a quiet start (in the media), in the ‘book’ world it will be a keen focus. I’ll keep you updated here and on Mrs Mac’s Library Site.

As an introduction to 2012, I thought you may be interested in upcoming titles for this year – both for children and young adults.

Let me know what you have been reading or are keen to read!

New Titles for 2012:

Alexandra Adornetto                       Heaven

Graeme Base                                     Little Elephants (Oct)

Carmel Bird                                       The Fabulous Finola Fox (April)

Isobel Carmody                                The Red Queen (Sept)

Justine Clarke                                   Gobbledygook is Eating a Book (Sept)

Kirsty Eager                                      Night Beach (April)

Jackie French                                    Pennies for Hitler (June)

Susanne Gervay                                Ships in the Field (Feb)

Morris Gleitzman                             After (June)

Andy Griffiths                                   Just Doomed (April)

The 26th Storey Treehouse (Sept)

Sonya Hartnett                                 Children of the King (April)

Rosanne Hawke                               The Message Bird (March)

Steven Herrick                                  Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend (Aug)

Alison Lester                                     Hoot

“                    “                                      Sophie Scott goes South (May)

Fiona McIntosh                               The Rumplegeist (July)

Chris Morphew                                Fallout (Feb)

Sally Murphy                                   Do Not Forget Australia

Ian Trevaskis                                    The Edge of the World (Feb)

Frances Watts                                  The Fearsome, Frightening, Ferocious Box (May)

“                 ”                                        The Secret of Zanzibar

KS were excited this morning when we discovered Graeme Base will publish a new book ‘Karnak’ on October 3. We viewed the book trailer on the website here. Just click on Karnak. There is a new challenge to be completed after you have read the book. I’ll certainly purchase the book during the holidays!

As I told our class of 20 parents last week, I am a strong believer in reading for enjoyment. I also recognise the power of reading aloud! Just last week I had to rush to order more copies of some of the titles in the 2011 Book Week shortlist as the reserve lists are getting longer each week!

The purpose of this blog is to let you know of not only what I have been selecting for our school library, but also some recommended reads. I thought it might be more useful blogging about it rather than just writing up a boring list!

This term we are going to really immerse ourselves in reading as a way to celebrate Book Week. We are also talking to authors via email and blogs – and last Tuesday our Yr 5 Library Monitors attended a Literary Lunch and met several authors. The best bit was having Frances Watts at our table! I think we all enjoyed asking Frances lots of questions about her writing and hearing some of the stories ‘behind’ the stories!

So, what’s popular at the moment?

Well, from the shortlist in the Early Childhood category ‘The Tall Man and the Twelve Babies’ and ‘It’s Bedtime William’ from those we’ve read so far. ‘My Uncle’s Donkey’ and ‘Two Peas in a Pod’ in the Picture Book category and in the Younger Readers category, ‘Toppling’, ‘Just a Dog’ , ‘The Deep End’ and ‘Duck for a Day’.

The new Deb Abela book ‘Grimsdon’ received the thumbs up from Jack in 4I while I have a few Year 6ers who have been waiting patiently for more titles in the ‘Ranger’s Apprentice’ series. They will hit the shelves next week!

The new  Australian series ‘Our Australian Girl’ are hardly ever on the shelves – and are written by a number of top line authors. Have a look at the website! 

Also, Jacqueline Harvey has been busy with her new ‘Alice Miranda’ series and I am trying to keep up with the new titles as they are released! Alice M has her own website, too!

You can never go wrong with Aussie Nibbles and our collection continues to grow…in popularity as well!

1LW are proving to be diehard Ursula Dubosarsky fans after reading ‘The Deep End’ and receiving an answer to the email we sent, so we are going to read some of her other books this term.

I’ll add some other author sites to the links list, as well as some other handy blogs related to children’s books.

Let me know what you think of my new blog, what you are reading or what you would like to read!