My Summer Reading Challenge

For the past couple of summers, whilst travelling between Wales to see JJ and being at home, I've managed to volunteer at my local library, helping out with the summer reading challenge. This is a great, nation-wide scheme run by a charity called The Reading Agency and chances are it's started in your local library already (98% of UK libraries take part). It's a scheme aimed at kids (although anyone can take part). The challenge is to read six books from the library, earning stickers and little rewards along the way as they do. It's the biggest reading event for kids in libraries and IT IS FREE! FREE! FREE STUFF FOR YOUR CHILDREN! SOMETHING FOR THEM TO DO THAT IS FREE!

FREE THINGS AHMAGERD!

I think I've made my point...

When the kids sign up they get a little pack, with a poster and other goodies to help them track their progress. If they managed to read all six books, they get a medal and certificate and some libraries have a little ceremony to present them. There's always a theme - last years was 'Creepy House' - a sort of haunted house theme. The year before that it was 'Story Lab'. This years is 'Mythical Maze'. I think the 2014 theme is fab. It's a theme that kids of all ages can appreciate, as well as being a great theme to attract boys and girls.

Illustrations this year by Sarah McIntyre

There's lots for the kids to do on the website too. They can find new books to read, recommended by other children, play games and log their progress online if they want to (although this isn't necessary to keep track of your progress, it's something older children might like to do anyway).

Most libraries look for volunteers to help manage and run the challenge, so if you fancy popping to your library a couple of days per week, encouraging kids to read and basically helping to keep things flowing smoother than Michael Bublé chatting up your mum, go forth, and question those nice librarians and see if you can be of assistance. Due to house hunting and lots of uncertainties about my location this summer, I haven't volunteered. Hopefully I will make it next year! However, I've decided to do my own reading challenge. Here's my six books to read this summer:

This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A couple were given to me as gifts, a couple I found lurking in my room (I think one more read and the copy of Gone with the Wind might fall apart. I have no idea where it came from), and a couple I feel like it's about time I read. I've finished This Book is Overdue, The Graveyard Book and I am currently battling through the thousands of pages that make up Gone with the Wind. Hopefully by the end of August I will have finished the lot and I can buy myself a medal. Sadly I get no poster or stickers along my summer reading challenge journey. If anyone wishes to donate stickers, do message.

It's not too late to sign up your kids/siblings/ChildrenYouChildMind/nieces/nephews/grandkids to the Summer Reading Challenge. So go do it! It doesn't matter if they don't finish, and they'll be proud of themselves if they do! For very young children, books you read to them/with them count too!

See the summer reading challenge on Facebook and use #summerreadingchallenge on Twitter.

For now, I've got to keep going with Gone with the Wind. Apart from struggling with the horrendous racism, I'm wondering if Scarlett O'Hara will ever, during the course of this book, get her head out of her own bum. Only 700 pages to go!!

Over and out.

I visit Manchester Central Library and take a whole bunch of pictures.

I'm going off to study Information Management and Librarianship at Manchester Metropolitan University this coming September. I'm very excited and literally counting down the days! So on Thursday fate took me to be in Manchester for a couple of hours - so what did I do? Hunted down the library of course!

Manchester central library was closed for a long time, due to refurbishment and building work. I have never managed to visit the central library, so what it looked like before is a mystery to me. However, what they have now is beautiful. There's four floors in a spectacular domed building.

The entrance, complete with a friendly security guy outside who smiled very nicely at me :)

 

 

I decided to work from the bottom and work my way up. Lower Ground Floor first:

 

 

 

As you can tell from the edge of the picture, it looked like work hadn't quite been finished on this floor. Some sections were blocked off by the green plastic sheeting you can see on the right. But on the whole this floor was the only place I saw that was still having any work done. I had a small wander around the children's section first, and what struck me first was the beautiful wall art.

 

 Autumn

 



Cute birds!

 

The simple, flowing designs were different to many other children's areas I've seen, where garish colours and bright, bold designs are often the norm. This was refreshingly different. It didn't come without the usual awesome children's furniture:

 

Why can't adults have this? The temptation to make a den was overwhelming.

 

One of the greatest things the children's section had was this:

 



 

This was a live image projected onto the floor of a lake reflecting trees. When you stepped anywhere onto the circle, the image rippled and made splashy noises, just as if you'd stepped into a real puddle! It was amazing! I did take a video, so maybe I'll upload that at some point so you can see. I have no idea how it works. I suspect magic.

 

So after playing in the fake lake, I had a quick browse of the section intended for my age group:

 

Endless shelves of lovely books...



Poe anyone?

There were these great information points scattered all around the library.

Before wandering around some of the other floors. The reference section, on the fourth floor, had some stunning photographical displays on the shelf sides.

The Pankhurst Sisters. Sylvia actually studied at MMU herself, so wiki says.

 



The music library was stunning. I cannot wait to come and borrow some music from here, as I recently found out I have passed my Grade 8 violin exam!

Light and airy.

 

There were a couple of silent pianos tucked away in one of the nooks to the left, so you could practise to your hearts content. The archives were equally impressive, with lots of interactive displays and a film archive.

 



The booths were great. You could search a database of local TV/Film archive material, settle yourself down in a chair and watch away. Open access at its best!

Next to the archive was a very important part of the library. I firmly believe every library should have one. It should be law.

Cakes, tea and sandwiches/salads galore. Delish.

 

But the crowning jewel for me personally was the reading room. This looked like it hadn't been modernized at all by the recent works and could easily seat about 300 people. It's in the centre, with the large domed roof circled with a quote from the Old Testament.

 



I wish my pictures could do it justice but they just don't!

 

The silence in here was gorgeous.

 

So here I took some time out to read my current book (The Bell Jar) and immersed myself in the peace. Please do look on their website for better pictures because I cannot get across how beautiful this room was. I would happily go there everyday. I'll leave you with one last picture of a stained window. The library has been amazingly modernized and renovated, however beautiful old features like this still exist.

 

 

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the famous Shakespeare window. But this one was nice too.

 

Have a look on their website here. There's a great section called reborn, where you can look at pictures and videos of the transformation. It's within walking distance of Piccadilly station and is open 9am-8pm Mon-Thurs and 9am-5pm Friday and Saturday. It is closed on Sundays. There's still some works going on around the outside of the building, but don't let that put you off. Go and investigate.

 

This has been a very long post. So for now, I'm off.

 

Over and out.  

The Carnegie Winner, my thoughts.

So if you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that during my time working at a boarding school I was helping to run a book club. We were shadowing the books on the shortlist to win the Carnegie Medal, an award some would call the highest honour achievable for children's authors. Here's a link to a post I did about Carnegie Shadowing, if your unsure of how it works. The shortlisted books were as follows.

 

All the truth that's in me by Julie Berry 3\5
The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks 1\5
Blood Family by Anne Fine 4\5
The Child's Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston
Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper (here's a link to my review)
Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead 3.5\5
Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell 2\5
The Wall by William Sutcliffe 4\5

 

I managed to read them all, except The Child's Elephant. It wasn't because I didn't want too, I simply ran out of time. The students that read it weren't that excited about it anyway, so maybe I wasn't missing much. The ratings next to the books were my personal thoughts about each one. The students seems to think the best out of the lot, were Rooftoppers, The Bunker Diary and Liar and Spy. Ghost Hawk and Blood Family were also the favourites of one or two members.

So after months of reading and a penultimate session in which each chose the book they would want to win, and the one they thought would win (and why there is a difference between the two), we had our last session and the winner was announced. Which was it?

 

The Bunker Diary. Of course it was.

 

Even the cover is depressing. 

 

You'll notice I gave the Bunker Diary a measly 1\5. This wasn't because of the subject matter. The book got a lot of publicity, because of its grim content and the fact that it dredged up that age old conundrum of what literature is appropriate for children. But first, a plot summary.

 

In short the book is about a sixteen year old boy who is kidnapped by an unnamed man and held captive in a, presumably underground, bunker. More people appear in the bunker via a lift (that seems to be the only way in/out of the place), a nine year old girl, a drug addicted man, an elderly man with a terminal illness and a few more. Its written in a series of diary entries penned by Linus, the teenage boy. The kidnapper communicates with his victims via notes attached to things that come up and down in the lift. He punishes them, drugs them, toys with them. He sends down a rabid dog at one point. It doesn't have a happy ending. Everyone dies one by one and the diary entries become more and more garbled. And then it just ends. He isn't saved, we don't really know what happens, but we can assume he's died. Cannibalism, sex, drugs and other fun topics are introduced. Why didn't I like it? I'm not a prude, I don't think that these topics aren't suitable for children. So why?

 

For a start, See The Guardian review here, and The Times here (if you fancy paying to view the whole article). I usually agree with the guardian more than other papers, however I seem to think they're following the stance that children see much worse in real life, so it's okay to write about it. I'll do another post on what I think suitable literature for children is later, but although I do agree that largely you should let children explore fiction at their own pace I think there are better ways to present them in children's literature. Sutcliffe's The Wall did a fantastic job of introducing hard hitting topics, such as the Israel/Palestine conflict (although place names are never mentioned - see a great article about this here) and family breakdown, in a well written and thoughtful way that I thought would make good reading for children. Similarly Blood Family did a good job of presenting abuse at home and the difficulties of fostering and adopting in a fantastic novel that all of my students who read thought was eye opening and sad but brilliant at the same time.

 

My main bug bear? I thought The Bunker Diary was lazy. I think that CILIP chose it because it would present a talking point. (They did the same in 1996 when Junk by Melvin Burgess won the award, however, I did actually enjoy that book - click for my review). And it does, its a great book for reading groups because everyone will have a different, very strong view. But that doesn't make it automatically the winner of a children's book award. The ending was lazy. I hate books that trail off. And I know Brooks did it on purpose to put across his idea that not all children's books that talk about difficult subjects should have a happy ending. I'm not saying they should either. But they should end. I didn't feel like it ended at all. It just stopped. It was an easy read, because it wasn't challenging. It wasn't a difficult read at all, and because of that it bored me a little too.

 

I don't know, maybe I'm not qualified to tell a famous author how to do it. But my winner from that list would have either been Ghost Hawk or Liar and Spy. Another problem we had at our school was that three of the books on the shortlist were recommended for 14+ age group. The students I worked with were all 11\12. I wouldn't have minded perhaps two of the nominated books being for older readers, but three was a bit much considering only one was a 9+ (the rest were 11+). Again this brings up the issue of where to draw the line between YA and children's fiction. And you can't, because each child progresses at their own pace, but I didn't think The Bunker Diary should have been a children's book. It would have been better as an adult book. It felt like Room, by Emma Donoghue. Passing it off as a teen read, I think, was simply to get the extra publicity.

 

Rant over. Sorry Kevin Brooks, but The Bunker Diary wasn't for me. Though apparently very qualified librarians and thousands of teens disagree.

 

Over and out.

The End of Stage One: Leaving the Boarding School Library

It is over. My time as a boarding school librarian has come to an end. One very squashed car journey on Saturday, complete with four people, a dog and a years collection of stuff, brought me back home, and left me to reflect on my time at the school. Friday evening brought emotions to a high with the staff party (which was more a meal than anything else) during which CC, my boss, had to stand up and say a few words about me. After that I gathered with my friends and we reminisced before finally collapsing for a well earned full nights sleep. The last week was manic. Not only was it the end of term, so lots of extra events were on, i had my last days at the primary school too. It felt odd handing back my library keys after the last Friday shift. Bittersweet sums it up perfectly. I have been living and working alongside the same people for ten months, and you can't do that without forming some close friendships. You see them in the staff room and then they're there when you get home too. My department consisted of me and CC. It would have been awful if we didn't get on. We saw each other five days a week and, with one desk/computer between us, were constantly falling over one another. Luckily I've had the best 10 months I could have had. I thought I'd sum up my time with five things I'm going to miss and five things I might not miss about the job. Because otherwise this post runs the risk of becoming smushy and I believe in balance.

 

1) My boss. She never yelled, even on my 'slow' days, had bags full of patience, humour and wit and loved Neil Gaiman just as much as I do. She emailed me pictures of cats for crying out loud. Best person ever!

 

2) My friends. They know who they are and I couldn't have lasted more than a month without them. From late night running, cinema trips, London adventures and cheeky takeaways, they have been the best humans ever. I can't wait for the reunion In August!

 

3) The food. It was free, and yes I moaned about the constant 'filo' creations' but as school food goes, that place had it sorted. No1 dish? Risotto. Plus, if you can name me a school where you get served things like teriyaki salmon, sweet potato fries and have a salad bar complete with hummus and crudités, I'd be impressed.

 

4) The grounds. A deer terrified the life out of me the other week by just sauntering in front of me on my way up the hill. Cute baby ducks on the lake, acres of woodland. You can't really enjoy it much when the students were on site but in the holidays when the site was empty it was amazing waltzing around and being silly on the lacrosse pitch. A beautiful place.

 

5) The job. Its made me decide that this is what I want to do with my time. I loved my job and I actually looked forward to going to work everyday. I'm really keen to try working in other libraries now to see the differences and similarities and I've learned so, so much. I'm glad I've got the basics before going to do my degree as hopefully it will give me a massive advantage.

 

Too smushy? Here's my five least favourite points about the last year.

 

1) The 'bubble'. Living where you work and working where you live can sometimes run the risk of making you go crazy. You can feel like the school is impossible to get away from. Luckily I had friends to keep me sane, but when your days off are spend hanging around where you spend the rest of the week anyway, it can feel a bit claustrophobic at times.

 

2) The Bells. SweetFlipFlops. There's a chapel on site, less than 200 metres from where my accommodation was. The bells go off every quarter of an hour. The start bonging 8am and keep it up until 10pm. Lies ins don't exist. However you do always know what time it is.

 

3) The sirens. There's a hospital down one side of the school, a fire station opposite and a police station across the other way. Flashing blue lights and noisy sirens at all hours of the day and night become like unwelcome nightly mini-raves.

 

4) The awkward 'What year are you in?' question. Heaven help you if you're dressed casually and you bump into some touring parents/visitors/anyone who doesn't know who you are. This will only apply to those who don't look their age, those poor people, like me, who are still asked for ID for 18 certificate movies. I should not have to explain that I'm a member of staff, not a student, at 22 years old. I guess I might appreciate it when I'm 50. Maybe.

 

5) The short year. Okay so extra holiday time is always a plus, but I still felt at the end of ten months that I'd only just started to get to know some of the students. It would have been nicer to stay for two years perhaps. I guess this isn't really much of a negative but that rounds off my list on a slightly less negative note :)

 

There's lots more things I should say. But that would mean a super long post and to be honest I think this covers the main points. Thanks to the school for giving me my first leg up onto the library career ladder. Let's see what the next library adventure brings. Stick around for my further book related adventures this summer and for September when I begin my Librarianship degree! 

  

Over and out.