Registration Goal reached and surpassed!

As of today, 67 of our students have registered for the Premiers’ Reading Challenge!

What an exciting milestone for those students and our school!! Fantastic!!

This year we set an additional goal for students taking part in the Challenge to achieve 500 books read - hundreds more than the first year we were part of the Challenge in 2019. As of today, 479 books have been read!

This week, Oscar Eade Yr 7, Isabelle Chapman Yr 7, Amelia O'Grady Yr 7, and Jaida Bourke Yr 8 added their names to the list of students who have met the Challenge. Congratulations to all these students. Well done!!

All Yr's 7-10 students can take part in the Challenge. It’s not too late to email Mrs Bush cbush@sje.vic.edu.au to register.

All PRC books in the Library catalogue at SIMON/ Student link/ Library catalogue are identified with a blue PRC icon. There is also a display of PRC books in the Library. Questions? Email library@sje.vic.edu.au For more about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge go to https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/events/prc/Pages/default.aspx

Pic. source: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/events/prc/PRC2020schoolsbadge.jpg.jpg

Read digital book or digital audiobooks free!

Access a large collection of digital books to read, or listen to, for free!

Go to SIMON/ Student links/ Library Catalogue/ Sora tab and follow the instructions.

Problems? Email library@sje.vic.edu.au

The SJC Parent/Carer Library is here!

Parents and Carers of our students can now borrow from the College Library. Remember we have a complete fiction Senior Fiction collection made up of latest releases and favourites. These books are only for loan by staff and parents/carers. Put in your favourite author in the search bar and see what comes up, or look by category (Senior Fiction). You can also borrow any fiction or non-fiction book from the Library. It’s easy!

Click on the link to the College Library Catalogue on PAM.
Search and select the book/s you’d like and email your book or list to library@sje.vic.edu.au Your books will be taken from the shelf and left in an opaque carry bag at the College Front Office ready for pick up.
We will email you to say the books are ready. Allow 24 hours weekdays.

Pic. source: daytonparentmagazine.com

Lunchtimes in the Library

Aunty Donna has been running basket-making classes for those interested on a Thursday lunchtime.

Those who have come along have really enjoyed the sessions.

We have also been screening live the Olympics.

We have had lots of cheering - especially while the swimming was on!

New books

Each month we purchase a selection of new books through Lamont Books for our Library collection. Lamont Books is a 100% Australian, family owned and operated business, and is Victoria's largest school library supplier, as well as supplying books to schools throughout Australia.

If you would like to borrow any of these books, please email library@sje.vic.edu.au and we will arrange for it to be left at the Front Office for collection.

This month’s titles include:

Half my luck by Samera Kamaleddine

Layla Karimi has been cursed by the evil eye. Well, that's what Layla's superstitious grandmother tells her. And Layla reckons it makes sense as she's sort of Australian and sort of Lebanese: a 'halfie' who doesn't really fit into either world. And when all hell breaks loose at the first beach party of the summer, Layla finds herself caught between her friends and the Lebanese kids. One group has been wrongfully accused and Layla knows the truth that would clear their name. But will she speak up?

Year 9 and up.

The Inheritance by Armin Greder

The Inheritance tells of economic power, and reminds us that silence and inaction amount to complicity. With minimal text, this powerful story is told primarily through Armin Greder's distinctive illustrations that challenge the reader to question the status quo and fight for the future.

Powerful storytelling from the internationally acclaimed, award-winning creator of The Island, The Mediterranean and Diamonds.

Underground: Marsupial Outlaws and other rebels of Australia's war in Vietnam by Mirranda Burton

Why would a wombat be registered for war?

It's 1965 and young Australian men are being conscripted to fight in the war in Vietnam. Determined to wreck the system, Melbourne housewife Jean forms the Save Our Sons Victorian branch. Meanwhile, in the small country town of Katunga, Bill Cantwell joins the Australian Army, and in Saigon, young Mai Ho is writing letters to South Vietnamese soldiers from her school desk.

As these stories intersect in unexpected ways and destinies entwine, a new world gradually emerges - a world in which bridges of understanding make more sense than war. This stunning graphic novel, full of empathy, courage and resistance, is based on true events.

Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn

Fifteen-year-old Amandla's mother has always been strange. For starters, she's a white woman living in Sugar Town, one of South Africa's infamous shanty towns. She won't tell anyone, not even Amandla, about her past. And she has visions, including ones that promise the return of Amandla's father as if he were a prince in a fairytale, but their hardscrabble life is no fairytale.

Lately, her mother has been acting even more strangely, so when Amandla finds a mysterious address at the bottom of her mother's purse along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. With her best friends by her side, Amandla is ready to confront devastating family secrets and pain that has lasted a generation.

The rise of the Remarkables : The Thaumagician's Revenge by Gareth Ward

The next crackingly paced, steampunk thrill ride from award-winning master of the genre, Gareth Ward. Following on from the dramatic events of the first book in The Rise of the Remarkables duology, we find Wrench and Bot on the hunt for Plum with the aid of Thirteen. Plum is more dangerous than ever and appears to be recruiting more aberrations – determined to re-open the rupture. Meanwhile, the events of the Minster Schism have drained Wrench of her magic and she begins lessons with Master Tranter in an attempt to re-kindle her powers.It is here that she meets Vexanna, Thirteen’s new apprentice thaumagician. They will all have their roles to play, as Wrench works to discover the truth about her past – and make it to her future alive.

Trouble is my business by Lisa Walker

Olivia's looking for answers, with the help of her stash of disguises, the PI skills her irresistible ex-boss Rosco taught her, and a nose for trouble. Her suspects following the disappearance of her firend Abbey include a hardcore surfer who often argued with Abbey in the surf, a charismatic cult leader, and an acrobatic botany student.

And then there's Rosco, officially assigned to the case, and proving impossible to avoid.

Lisa Walker's second Olivia Grace novel is another rip-roaring excursion into madcap sunshine noir, with nods to Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, and a flavour of Veronica Mars meets Elmore Leonard. For readers Year 10 and above.

Muddy people : A Memoir by Sara El Sayed

A hilarious, heartwarming memoir of growing up and becoming yourself in an Egyptian Muslim family. Soos is coming of age in a household with a lot of rules. No bikinis, despite the Queensland heat. No boys, unless he’s Muslim. And no life insurance, not even when her father gets cancer.

Soos is trying to balance her parents’ strict decrees with having friendships, crushes and the freedom to develop her own values. With each rule Soos comes up against, she is forced to choose between doing what her parents say is right and following her instincts.

When her family falls apart, she comes to see her parents as flawed, their morals based on a muddy logic. But she will also learn that they are her strongest defenders.

The monster of her age by Danielle Binks

How do you ruin someone's childhood? Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved. Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late.

When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last comes to understand her family's legacy. A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.

The Boyband murder mystery by Ava Eldred

A page-turning murder mystery from an exciting new voice in YA fiction. 'I have long believed that loving a boyband brings with it a wealth of transferable skills, but I'd never imagined solving a murder would be one of them...' Harri and her best friends worship Half Light - an internationally famous boyband. When frontman Frankie is arrested on suspicion of murdering his oldest friend Evan, Harri feels like her world's about to fall apart. But quickly she realises that she - and all the other Half Light superfans out there - know and understand much more about these boys than any detective ever could. Now she's rallying a fangirl army to prove Frankie's innocence - and to show the world that you should never underestimate a teenage girl with a passion…

The opposite of disappeared by Laura Norris and RA Stephens

‘The centre of the room houses her favourite thing in the space: a dragonfly encased in amber. She loves the thin, delicate markings on its webbed wings, the tiny buds of its antennae. This is history. This is something precious stopped in time. And while it makes her sad to think of how the dragonfly made its sticky end, she thinks how cool is it that time can march on while it lies there, preserved in inexhaustible detail?’

A homeless boy walks the city in search of a prized possession. A couple wakes to a day where the sun refuses to rise. Two housemates, reeling from the loss of their friend, are saddled with the care of a pot plant. A new student attempts to include herself in the worst known environment: a new school. A girl, lost in time, adapts to the new normal.

These fourteen short stories explore connectivity, resilience, grief and the small ways to navigate the uncertainties of life.

Authors included: Sandy Bigna, D. J. Blackmore, Geraldine Borella, Samantha-Ellen Bound, Niko Campbell-Ellis, Peter Clarkson, Kelly Emmerton, Carla Fitzgerald, Kate Gordon, Deborah Huff-Horwood, Elizabeth Macintosh, Laura Norris, Frances Prentice and R. A. Stephens.

Ground Zero by Alan Gratz

It's September 11, 2001. Brandon, a 9-year-old boy, goes to work for the day with his dad... at the World Trade Center in New York City. When two planes hit the towers, Brandon and his father are trapped inside a fiery nightmare as terror and confusion swirl around them. Can they escape—and what will the world be like when they do? In present-day Afghanistan, Reshmina is an 11-year-old girl who is used to growing up in the shadow of war, but she has dreams of peace and unity.

When she ends up harboring a wounded young American soldier, she and her entire family are put in mortal danger. But Reshmina also learns something surprising about the roots of this endless war. With his trademark skill and insight, Alan Gratz delivers an action-packed and powerful story of two kids whose lives connect in unexpected ways, and reminds us how the past and present are always more linked than we think.

Girls in Boys' cars by Felicity Castagna

Rosa was never really trying to hurt anyone, no matter what they said in court. But she's ended up in juvenile jail anyway, living her life through books and wondering why her best mate Asheeka disappeared.

A page-turning novel about a complicated friendship; a road trip through NSW in a stolen car; the stories that define us; and two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer.

LOWER SECONDARY

Coastwatcher by David Hill

A tense, exciting war adventure inspired by the coastwatchers of Operation Pacific, from award-winning author David Hill.

'It's not going to be a cushy job, young Benson. You're on your own. Japs will be looking for you. Far as they're concerned, you're spies. And when a spy gets captured, remember . . .'

It's 1943, and 19-year-old radio operator Frank Benson is shipped out to an enemy-occupied island in the Solomons with two other soldiers. Their mission is to spy on the Japanese.

In dense jungle they meet a Solomon Islander who says he has information that will shatter Japanese defences. But he could be working for the enemy. What if it's a trap to get them killed?

No training could have prepared Frank for this decision. Their lives - and Operation Pacific - depend on his next move.

The wolf's howl by AL Tait

Maven and Reeve find themselves at the far-flung and gloomy Glawn Castle while Sir Garrick secretly searches for supporters of the rebellion. But when a cook goes missing and the Airl's personal guards take more than a passing interest in the disappearance, danger looms and the potential for discovery grows.

Can Maven and Reeve solve the mystery… or will they be unmasked and sentenced with treason?

Through the gift shop by Maryam Master

Anahita Rosalind Ghorban-Galaszczuk (yes, that really is her name but you can call her Ana) is discovering that life is absurd. As if dying of cancer at the age of 12.5 isn't bad enough, she still has to endure daily insults from her nemesis, Alyssa (Queen Mean) Anderson. Ana's on a wild roller-coaster of life and death, kindness and cruelty, ordinary and extraordinary.

And she's got a few things to do before she exits…

The summer I robbed a bank by David O'Doherty

Millions meets Gangsta Granny.

There's a feeling of relief that comes just after you've robbed a bank…

Rex's parents have split up and, to make matters worse, he has to spend his summer holiday on a remote and rainy Irish island - with only unruly sheep for company. The only upside - he'll be staying with his strange and brilliant Uncle Derm.

Then Rex discovers Uncle Derm is about to execute his most hair-brained plan yet… To rob the island's travelling bank!

Like the local legend of medieval Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley, Uncle Derm plans to redistribute the money to local needy causes on the island. And he needs Rex's help…

Year 10 Community Service