Library News

Welcome to another busy week in the library, with everything building towards Book Week next week. I’m beginning to get my costume together, and there’s been excited chatter about what students plan to come as, too. Next week, there’s something every day to celebrate reading across the school. Book Week is always the best week in the library, and I’m looking forward to seeing families join us for the Costume Parade on Tuesday.

Book Week Costume Parade - Tuesday, 20th August at 12.10 pm

Students and staff are excited to celebrate Book Week with a costume parade in the Secondary Quadrangle on Tuesday, August 20th, at 12:10 p.m. Students from K-10 are encouraged to come dressed as their favourite book characters and enjoy sharing their love of books with the school community. Families are welcome to attend and join in the fun, too. 

Families also have the opportunity to view Primary classroom doors and windows decorated with student art and work about books and reading. They look great, and I’m sure you will enjoy the creativity. The library is opened after the parade as well so you can see the learning space that makes so many students happy.

Premier’s Reading Challenge - ENDING IN 10 DAYS!

With just 10 days to go in the Challenge, more students are returning their reading logs each day. Please let me know if you would like assistance logging books or getting your children to the finish line. I can print their borrowing history, which can be added to their record.

The final date for students to log their books is Friday, 23rd August 2024. 11.59 pm

This Week’s Reads

Across K-6, we continue to read more books from the Books of the Year Shortlist. K-2 are enjoying ‘Can You Teach a Fish to Climb a Tree’ by Jane Godwin and Terry Denton, which celebrates everyone's unique talents and interests. After discussing this with classes, I’ve discovered many interesting talents in our school! We’re then following this with ‘Gymnastica Fantastica’ by Briony Stewart, and we love her use of wonderful adjectives to describe twirls, leaps, flips, and headstands. We’re even slipping in a quick viewing of an Olympic rhythmic gymnastic routine like our main character performs in the story.

Years 3 and 4 are reading two more stories from the Picture Books of the Year category. Last week, they read two vastly different stories (I think we’re all still trying to understand Paper Flower Girl), and this week will be no different. The first book is ‘Every Night at Midnight’ by Peter Cheong, and then ‘If I Was a Horse’ by Sophie Blackall. We’re all wondering how the judges decide when the books can are so different. I wonder if we can pick the winner?

Finally, Stage 3 is reading the first chapter of two ‘lighter’ stories this week. ‘Real Pigeons Flap Out’ is the 11th book in this series written by Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood. It’s the only graphic novel in this category and is a lot of fun. The other book is ‘ Scout and the Rescue Dogs’ by Diane Wolfer. It’s the story of a young country girl who is off on an adventure with her father in ‘Big Rig', delivering food to animal shelters across Victoria. Along the way, they make friends with people and dogs, and a bushfire is thrown in to add some adventure. You can view the book trailer for this story here.

SORA eBooks of the Week

Meet the Readers

Meet Jack Sweeney from 6T. Jack came in to borrow a book for the costume parade (can you guess what it could be?) and also the latest ‘I Survived’ graphic novel book. 

Meet Charlie Mason from 4DL, the happy first borrower of these new nonfiction books. Happy reading, Charlie!

Finally, meet the best Year 8 library returners (they made me say that). Thanks to the boys for returning all these books. Small miracles do happen! 

New Books Alert

There’s something new for everyone this week. Check them out now!

Finally… Bethany’s final review for the Older Readers Books of the Year. Thank you for joining in the fun and talking about all things books.

Bethany’s Brilliant Book Reviews: The Podium

Hi everyone, I’m Bethany from Year 8.

Over the past term, I have read all six books shortlisted for the CBCA’s Books of the Year older readers category. Please note that all opinions are my own. You can find the full reviews for some of these books in previous newsletters.

The official CBCA-judged winner and runners-up will be announced this Friday.

So, without further ado, here are my placements:

6th Place: Let’s Never Speak of This Again 

This book is titled Let’s Never Speak of This Again. This just about sums up my review.

This novel, quite frankly, was a bit of a mess. The story starts upbeat and happy, and after a secondary character dies, the tone remains the same despite the tragedy. 

Brushing over the blatant disregard for authentic emotions, I feel the book was formatted poorly (it had subheadings instead of chapters; whose idea was it to turn a YA novel into an article?) and didn’t mimic the ‘teenage experience’ as far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’m not old enough to relate to it, or maybe it was injected with unnecessary drama. Either way, let’s just say it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea. 

Rating: 0.5 stars

5th Place: A Hunger of Thorns

I was most excited about this book because the blurb promised a thrilling story about a girl’s grand adventure into the unknown to search for her friend. 

I was thoroughly disappointed. 

The author doesn’t even bother answering any key questions that are deeply relevant to the plot! I mean, why is Maude even trying to find Odette in the first place? Didn’t she betray her or something? I thought they hated one another, but no, Maude will willingly wander into some enchanted forest and risk her life for a person who literally abandoned her!

Rating: 2 stars

4th Place: Two Can Play That Game

A classic teen romance. It's too bad this trope has already been done fifty thousand times.

If you can’t tell, I’m not a huge fan of romances that don’t have much of anything else. This book was fine—it had enough of a story to have the love plot as a cushion to fall back on, so I didn’t hate it—but it was nothing spectacular. The peak of average, you could say. 

Rating: 3 stars

3rd Place: The Quiet and the Loud

Georgia, our protagonist, is just a girl—figuring out her life.

Yep. That’s it. That’s the plot.

Despite the lack of a solid plot, this story was beautifully written. The language, character development, and overall story were wonderful. It had many challenging topics sprinkled throughout: mental health struggles, trauma, and alcoholism, to name a few. I loved the characters and their individual character arcs, but I feel that Helena Fox could have added a little more to the plot. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

2nd Place: Grace Notes

“We can all do with an extra note of grace.”

I have never read a novel formatted as poetry, and so I was a little sceptical walking into this one. But, even as the chapters were replaced with stanzas, the new format just added to the charm. The story was great, and I’m sure we can all relate a little too well to the setting: Australia 2020, our country’s Covid period. Karen Comer combines music, painting, and a whole lot of hope during a defeated period of time into one emotional yet phenomenal book. 

Rating: 4 stars

1st Place: Inkflower

Back then, in Auschwitz, the world was broken. Now, in the 1980s, the world is trying to heal, along with Lisa’s father. 

This powerful story—set in the ‘40s and '80s—taught me more than a textbook ever could about WWII and the heartbreaking loss, grief, and truth of the Auschwitz concentration camps. It is definitely worth reading; it impacted me in a way no other book on this list did. Suzy Zail, you are a truly talented author. Thank you for sharing your own story with the world through Lisa's eyes. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Thank you to everyone who has read any of my reviews. I’ll see you next year with 2025’s older readers lineup!

~Bethany