Library News

LIBRARY NEWS 

ANZ Newsstream – Online newspaper database

Have you ever wanted to find a newspaper article but encountered a paywall only offering access to paid subscribers? Fear not as the Lalor Secondary College subscribes to the ANZ Newsstream database. 

ANZ Newsstream allows you to access a wide range of full text newspaper articles from local, state and national newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. These include: The Age, Herald Sun, The Australian, The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Adelaide Advertiser etc. It combines content from Fairfax Australia and Fairfax New Zealand, News Limited, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and APP newswires, ANZ Newsstand provides the very latest local, regional and national news.

*The link can only be accessed through Compass. All students were sent the link on their news feed to access the database on Compass last week. An instruction sheet can also be found in the Library folder (under School Resources). Students needing additional help can ask Library staff for assistance.

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge

It’s great to see more students reading books, logging on and adding these to the Reading Challenge website. Students receive value cards and house points when they complete 5, 10 and 15 books. Those who complete the Challenge will be in the draw for some great prizes and will receive a signed certificate from Premier Dan Andrews later in the year.

Congratulations to the following students for receiving value cards and house points:

Ameer A 7B

Shady H 7B

Georgina S 7D

Karan M 7E

Romaric K 7H

Courtney B 8F

Nikki V 8F

Siratpreet K 9G

Suganja S 9H

Allen T 10H

****Well done to Courtney Baum 8F and Georgina Sahinis 7D for completing the Challenge in the past fortnight.

NEW FICTION

After the Rain By Nnedi Okorafor, David Brame, John Jennings

After the Rain is an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story On the Road. The adaptation begins in Nigeria during a violent and unexpected storm. A young Nigerian American woman named Chioma answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing there. When he touches her, his hand burns like fire and he disappears. Chioma knows that something is wrong, and that the boy has marked her in some way. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to face her future. John Jennings and David Brame’s collaboration uses bold art and colours to powerfully tell this tale of identity and destiny.

As fast as I can by Penny Tangey

One girl. One dream. A few hurdles. Ten-year-old Vivian is determined to win a medal at the Olympic Games one day. Problem is, she hasn’t found a sport she’s any good at yet.

But everyone says if you work hard enough you can achieve anything, right? So when Vivian discovers she has a talent for cross country running, finally, her Olympic dream might actually come true. But then a family illness is uncovered and all of Vivian’s plans begin to unravel. Can she keep her dream alive? Or will she be stopped in her tracks?

A funny, heartfelt novel about resilience, acceptance and dreaming big.

Before the beginning by Anna Morgan

Schoolies week: that strange in-between time when teenagers move from school into the adult world. It’s a week when anything is possible, and everything can change.

Grace is questioning everything she thought about herself, and has opted not to join her clique of judgemental friends for schoolies, instead tagging along with her brother Casper and his friends. Casper, an artist, is trying to create the perfect artwork for his uni application folio. Overachieving, anxiety-ridden Noah is reeling from a catastrophe that might have ruined his ATAR result. And Elsie is just trying to figure out how to hold their friendship group together.

On the first night of the trip, they meet Sierra, a mysterious girl with silver-grey hair and a magnetic personality. All of them are drawn to her for different reasons, and she persuades them to abandon the cliched schoolies experience in favour of camping with her on a remote, uninhabited island. On that island, each of them will find answers to their questions. But what does Sierra want from them?

Blackbird girls by Anne Blankman

On a spring morning, neighbours Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work - Chernobyl - has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who’ve always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina’s estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna.

In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person. Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother’s secret, one that could put all their lives in danger. And both of them discover something they’ve wished for: a best friend. But how far would you go to save your best friend’s life? Would you risk your own?

Told in alternating perspectives among three girls-Valentina and Oksana in 1986 and Rifka in 1941-this story shows that hatred, intolerance, and oppression are no match for the power of true friendship.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savour his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his room-mate and long time nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savour anything.

Based on the characters Simon and Baz who featured in Rainbow Rowell’s bestselling Fangirl, Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

Here the whole time by Vitor Martins, Larissa Helena

Felipe can’t wait for winter break: Finally, he’ll get some time away from the classmates who tease him incessantly about his weight. But Felipe’s plan turns upside down when he learns that Caio, his neighbour from apartment 57, will be staying with him for fifteen days. Which is a problem because (a) Felipe has had a crush on Caio since, well, forever; and (b) Felipe has a list of body image insecurities and absolutely NO idea how he’s going to handle them while sharing a room with his lifelong crush. Suddenly, the days that once promised rest and relaxation (not to mention some epic Netflix bingeing) are a gauntlet of every unresolved issue in Felipe’s life. But if he can overcome his insecurities, then maybe – just maybe – this break won’t turn out to be such a disaster after all …

How It All Blew Up By Arvin Ahmadi

Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew that coming out to his Muslim family would be messy, but he wasn’t expecting it to end in an airport interrogation room. Now, he’s telling his side of the story to the stern-faced officer.

Amir has to explain why he ran away to Rome (boys, bullies, blackmail) and what he was doing there for a month (dates in the Sistine Chapel, friends who helped him accept who he is, and, of course, drama) … all while his mum, dad and little sister are being interrogated in the room next door.

A nuanced take on growing up brown, Muslim and gay in today’s America, HOW IT ALL BLEW UP is the story of one boy’s struggle to come out to his family.

Maximum Ride: Manga Volume 3 By James Patterson

The third instalment of the manga adaptation of the bestselling series. Narrowly surviving their encounter with erasers in New York City, the flock is following up a lead on their pasts in Washington, D.C. But what they find waiting for them is a home. How will the flock adjust to a real school - one that doesn’t involve mad scientists and genetic freaks?

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

With clever magic, a star-crossed romance, and lethal stakes, The Merciful Crow is a YA fantasy debut perfect for fans of Sabaa Tahir, Leigh Bardugo, and Kendare Blake. As a future chieftain of the Crow caste, sixteen-year-old Fie abides by one rule: Look after your own. Her clan of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when her family is called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime. Instead, they find a still-living crown prince, his cunning bodyguard, and a common foe: a ruthless usurper queen who wants them all dead. Fie agrees to smuggle the prince across the nation in exchange for her people’s safety. But with the queen’s brutal hunters on their tail, she’s forced to make the sacrifices that define a true leader.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson, based on her award-winning web comic.

Nimona is an impulsive young shape-shifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren’t the heroes everyone thinks they are.

Sunburnt veils by Sara Hagadoosti

Sunburnt Veils is a smart, funny, character-based exploration of Islamophobia through a heroine who’s the kind of girl who reads at parties, but pushes herself to take a visible stand after a fellow student calls in a bomb threat on her first day of university, after she leaves a bag in a lecture theatre to take a phone call. Girl meets boy, ghosts his text messages, then convinces him to help her run for the student union. Just your typical love story with a hijabi twist.

The Vampire Diaries: The Fury and The Reunion: Book 3 and 4 by LJ Smith

Dark, gripping and romantic - read the books that inspired the phenomenal Netflix vampire series. Book 3 in the Vampire Diaries series from bestselling author L. J. Smith. Faced with an ancient evil, Stefan and Damon must stop their feuding and join forces with Elena to confront it. But in so doing, they are unwittingly sealing her fate … Darker than Twilight, more punch than Buffy and bloodier than True Blood - enjoy this romance with real bite…

NEW NON FICTION

Aussie Stem Star: Georgia Ward-Fear by Claire Saxby

Georgia Ward-Fear is most famous for her research into shifting ecological paradigms and animal behaviour. She is also an adventurer, travelling extensively in her sea kayak.

Georgia Ward-Fear’s conservation journey has seen her travel the world, empower young girls to become environmental leaders, and carry out trailblazing work to save native animals from the threat of cane toads. An inspiring story of an adventurous spirit whose love of the natural world has made her a STEM superstar.

Racism : stories on race, fear and bigotry edited by Winnie Dunn, Stephen Pham, Phoebe Grainer

Are we a nation of racists? Thirty-nine writers confront our darkest truths in this fearless collection of short stories, poems and essays from the margins of Australia.

Still alive : notes from Australia’s immigration detention system by Safdar Ahmed 

In early 2011, Safdar Ahmed visited Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for the first time. He brought pencils and sketchbooks into the centre and started drawing with the people detained there. Their stories are told in this book.

Interweaving journalism, history and autobiography, Still Alive is an intensely personal indictment of Australia’s refugee detention policies and procedures. It is also a searching reflection on the redemptive power of art and death metal.

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Ms Georgia Flaskas – Library Resource Centre Manager