Book Week
21-27 August
OLD WORLDS, NEW WORLDS, OTHER WORLDS
Welcome to Book week! It has been running since 1945, and is a great time to dress up, talk about great books and remember why reading can be fun.
This year, to help make those four walls look and feel a bit more interesting, we have a few challenges and competitions for you to try on your phone or laptop. And yes, there are prizes! There will be a Family Prize, Individual Prize, Team Prize, Most Creative and a Principal’s Prize. Each prize is a $50 voucher from Campion, our new book list supplier.
Chat with Robert Newton – Runner
Year 7 Students are all invited to an Author Talk session this Wednesday 25 August at 2pm with Robert Newton, author of “Runner”.
Check Xuno messages on Wednesday morning for the Webex meeting link.
Details on Book Week can be found on this site:
https://sites.google.com/view/esc-library/book-week
Please feel free to Xuno our librarian Ms Mesquita with any questions.
TEACHERS’ FAVOURITE BOOKS
The books people like, tell us something about them.
Time to learn something new about your Principals!
We asked some teachers and principals what their favourite books were and why.
Here’s what they told us…
Bradley Moyle – Principal
The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien
I really enjoy this book because it hooked me on learning and set the scene for my time at school. I first read it in primary school and have read it several times since. The whole series of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books, they’re just a fantastic read if you get the chance.
Here’s Mr Moyle reading the beginning of the novel: https://youtu.be/x2NgpBD0K20
An eBook version is available from our library.
Just search for it here: https://eppingsc.eplatform.co/browse
Username: your Xuno code
Password: Library1
Antoinette Hooper – Acting Assistant Principal
The Naughtiest Girl in School by Enid Blyton
I was such a goody-goody at school. I loved reading this because the main character was such a different character to myself. Also thinking back, this highlights my belief in restorative justice.
Frazer Thomas – Assistant Principal
The Sir Alex Ferguson autobiography is the best book I have ever read. I saw the man (former coach of the England soccer team) in a completely new light after reading this book. But for today, I chose Runner by Robert Newton as my son is reading it in English at school. He informed me it was a good book and we could discuss what the book is about. I have enjoyed the book as I have learned about a part of Melbourne's history that I wasn't aware of previously.
Other books that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading are West Side Story (also available here) and Of Mice and Men.
Hans Mulholland – Acting Assistant Principal
Frankenstein – It is also a gothic-romantic classic and was the creation of a 19 year old woman as part of a dare/challenge whilst she and her husband and a group of friends were forced to stay locked in a chalet in the Alps during a spell of bad weather whilst they were on holidays. The story is about a cold man, Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who believes he can play God and create life from a series of body parts harvested from the morgue… Gruesome, brilliant, touching and very powerful. The ‘Frankenstein’ monster shows what it means to be human… It demonstrates what its creator is unable to demonstrate but also commits heinous acts.
Also available in our eBook library
Mary Mesquita – Librarian (and brilliant teacher)
the Monster at the end of this Book
I know it may seem unusual that this could be a Librarians favourite book but sometimes enjoying a book doesn't just come from its literacy brilliance.
As a child, this book played on my curiosity. As a mother, I read it to my children as a bedtime story (their fave), adding character voices and suspense.
This book is a warm memory for my sons and I.
Colleen Hart - Year 7 Coordinator
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
I read Wuthering Heights as a 15 year old girl – an ghostly, gothic romance, it was the perfect literary awakening for a teenage girl. The anti-hero, Heathcliff, is the ultimate bad boy, shunned by society, loved by the girls.
Revenge. Passion. Epic love. Epic Suffering. Monsters. Supernatural. What’s not to love?
Wuthering Heights is breathtakingly beautiful, deeply poetic and exquisitely agonizing. Set in the haunting moors of England, it is a dark and stormy novel, with a nightmarish, gothic sensibility – a tale of wild, untamed, obsessive love, of two souls who yearn to be together.
Ms Hart reading Wuthering Heights: https://youtu.be/cQ2tyY0uxrU
Ric Gill-Atkinson – Acting Leading Teacher for Literacy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
It has spaceships, aliens who love a type of poetry so vile it makes people vomit, and a depressed robot. I think this was the first book I remember reading which made me laugh so hard I had to put it down. It was my first foray into science fiction; something I’ve never quite turned away from. I’ve read better books, with beautiful phrases and ideas, but this one will always be my favourite.
At the beginning of the novel, Arthur Dent is lying in the road, trying to stop a bulldozer from demolishing his house.
Ric Gill-Atkinson reading the opening: https://youtu.be/F5oyUiY6qs4
Dean Malcolm – Leading Teacher Careers
The Dirt an autobiography by Motely Crue
Why – Because I am all about Rock and Roll. I could not believe what they got up to and how they survived!
Melissa Foresio – Senior School Leading teacher
My favourite novel is “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I first read this novel when I was a Year 12 Literature student and was completely mesmerised by the vivid descriptions of the characters and their lifestyles. I was so intrigued by the history of the 1920s: in particular, prohibition in America. I loved the themes such as The American Dream and materialism as well as the symbolism Fitzgerald uses throughout the story. Since then, I’ve enjoyed the various film adaptations and seeing the novel come to life, but would definitely recommend reading the novel first as it really is a beautiful story.
Laura McCarthy – English Learning Specialist
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
“What if you have the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?” That’s the line that begins the blurb of this book and an intriguing question. The novel is all about fate and how we decide to make the right choices. It is not quite time travel because every few chapters, time just resets again, but it is a fascinating read and one of my favourites.
Michelle Robertshawe – English Learning Area Leader
Postcards by E. Annie Proulx
E. Annie Proulx is one of my favourite authors. She narrates dark, haunting stories with beautiful, rich prose. Whenever I read one of her books I want to jump on a plane and visit its location, whether it be a small, seaside village in Newfoundland or the vast ranges of Wyoming.
Postcards follows the life of the ill-fated Loyal Blood, whose already difficult life is complicated further when he kills his girlfriend. He spends his life drifting and the narrative cuts between his own trials and ordeals and his dysfunctional, bitter and disastrous family.
Julie Anastasiou – English and EAL Teacher
Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
Made a lasting impact on me as a child when I read it near the end of primary school.
Adventure, mystery and intrigue. And I loved the characters! Imagination can take you to so many places – what mysteries still exist in our earth? Still many to be found I believe.
Alessandra Pecorari – English Teacher
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
This is the novel I am reading now. Although I am not finished, it has earned its place as one of my favourite books! It is a nail-biting, page-turning murder mystery that is set on an outback cattle station in Australia and I never want to put it down!
Martin Evans – English and Sociology Teacher and drummer extraordinaire
The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
3 weeks in the life of Frank Reid in Moscow 1913. Short, sharp, easy to read, beautiful, romantic, evocative, original, hilarious, intriguing, and an astounding conclusion. A story almost as remarkable as Penelope Fitzgerald herself.
