Families can borrow from the Library even though we’re remote learning

To borrow a book, digital book or audiobook from our College Library collection go to the Library catalogue (PAM/ Student links/ Library catalogue), choose, email

library@sje.vic.edu.au, and we’ll take the book to the front office for collection. Just return the book to the front office when finished. The loan period is three months, which can be easily extended by emailing

library@sje.vic.edu.au

This week’s recommendation for parents and carers

The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety by Sheri Turrell PhD, Christopher McCurry PhD, Mary Bell MSW.

"Move past anxiety and discover what really matters to you. Written by three experts in teen mental health, this powerful workbook offers evidence-based activities grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you cope with anxiety, build resilience, stop avoiding the things you fear, and lead a fuller, happier life. Anxiety is what we feel when we're scared about some future event that may or may not happen. When you're struggling with anxiety your mind is trying to protect you from danger, so it's busy telling you about all the things you can't do. Along with these thoughts come a host of feelings and bodily sensations such as sweaty palms, restlessness, lightheadedness, and stomach aches. But it's not the anxious thoughts that make anxiety a problem. It's the actions we take, or don't take, as a result of these thoughts. In The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety, you'll find helpful alternatives to the ineffective strategies and habits you're currently using to deal with anxiety, such as avoidance. You'll find basic information about anxiety to help you recognize what it looks and feels like, mindfulness tips to help you stay in the moment when you feel worried about the future, and tips to help you connect with your own values so you can start putting the important things in life first". (Source: https://www.amazon.com.au/Mindfulness-Acceptance-Workbook-Teen-Anxiety/dp/168403115X)

To borrow email library@sje.vic.edu.au

2020 Premiers’ Reading Challenge deadline extended to 18 September

Still time for your student to conquer the Challenge. To participate in the PRC:

Students get their personal username and password from Mrs Celine Bush, from the College Learning Enhancement Team (cbush@sje.vic.edu.au) or Library staff (library@sje.vic.edu.au).
Go to https://vprc.eduweb.vic.gov.au/home
Click on “School/Student”
Click on “VPRC login”
Enter Username and Password.

Each student who conquers the Challenge gets a canteen voucher.

APPS and websites for fun

See the following apps and websites that are accessible, some for free, to keep readers engaged and improving their skills. Explore and have some fun!

With thanks to Ms Jodie Keady, Teacher Librarian, FCJ Benalla

Audible audiobooks	Perhaps the one most relevant to secondary students. Download the app and the first book is free. $16 per month and that includes one book (per month), extra books do ensue a cost. Huge range of genres including biographies and non-fiction titles. Lots of new releases. Can be cancelled at any time.	Huge range of books available for free at this time, particularly for young readers. Easy to use and portable if on your phone.
Save the stories	https://www.instagram.com/savewithstories/ Uses Instagram	Hollywood stars read out loud children’s books. Double click on video to make it full screen.
Storyline Online	https://www.storylineonline.net/	Professional actors read the books. Includes close-ups of the book pages. Has subtitles. Teacher’s guide included for most book.s Includes suggested grade level.
Harper Kids (YouTube channel)	www.youtube.com/user/HarperKids	Read out loud by the author Includes subtitles. Includes titles for older students (keep scrolling).

This month's Lamont Standing Order books available from the College Library

This month’s Lamont Standing Order books will be available for borrowing in the next week.

Titles include:

The Fire Star by A#L#Tait

A maid with a plan.

A squire with a secret.

A missing jewel.

A kingdom in turmoil.

Maven and Reeve have three days to solve the mystery of the Fire Star. If they don't, they'll lose everything.

This could be a complete disaster… or the beginning of a friendship.

Bestselling author A. L. Tait is back with the intriguing story of two unlikely allies and a mystery to solve that could change their lives.

Of Boys and Boats by Ian Trevaskis

It is 1956 – the year the Olympic Games came to Melbourne. Jack Spiller and his mates are caught up in the excitement, running their own torch relay around the block each night while the Olympic Torch travels to Melbourne.

When Jack and the new kid, Heinrich, discover an unfinished sailboat in the shed of recluse ‘Mad’ Mick Metcalf, Jack’s focus changes. Can he convince Mick to allow them to finish it? Or has the old man been too damaged by the horrors of World War One?

A fast-paced, humorous story about the power of friendship.

Indigo Owl by Charlie Archbold

'It's a privilege to live here, but we have to work for it. As Earth was bleached and destroyed by climate change, only private companies were able to afford to colonise space. Our planet, Galbraith, is named after what was once the biggest pharmaceutical company on Earth.' When Scarlet Bergen leaves the comforting familiarity of her home, Facility 614, to start her training at the imposing Arcadia Institute, she has all the normal worries: whether she will make friends, what life will look like, and whether she will pass the rigorous training to become a valued member of Galbraith society. But Scarlet has a secret: her mother went missing many years ago, and she's determined to find her. With the help of Rumi, her headstrong and frankly odd neighbour, and Dylan, the handsome but aloof student who reads her intuitively, maybe she'll be able to uncover the dark secrets of her family's past. But the three of them will also find out there's very little the Galbraith Executives will stop at to get what they want. In the vein of the popular 'Divergent' series, 'Indigo Owl' is fast-paced young adult dystopian fiction at its best.

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Della can't work out why her adored older sixteen-year-old sister Suki screams in her sleep. Suki has always been Della's protector, especially after their mother went to prison and her boyfriend took the sisters in. But who has been protecting Suki?

Della is in trouble at school for having a big mouth, but after she stands up to the class bully other girls rally to her cause. When Suki tries to kill herself, Della decides it's time to tell their secrets and speak out about the terrible things that happened to Suki. Bound by love and trauma, these two sisters must find their own voices before they can find their way back to each other.

Based on the author's personal experience, this gripping and essential story explodes the stigma around child sexual abuse. Written from the heart, with tenderness, compassion and humour, Fighting Words is about finding the words to talk about the most difficult things in young adults' lives.

The History of Mischief by Rebecca Higgie

When Jessie and her older sister Kay find a book called The History of Mischief, hidden beneath the floorboards in their grandmother's house, they uncover a secret world. The History chronicles how, since antiquity, mischief-makers have clandestinely shaped the past - from an Athenian slave to a Polish salt miner and from an advisor to the Ethiopian Queen to a girl escaping the Siege of Paris. Jessie becomes enthralled by the book and by her own mission to determine its accuracy.

Soon the History inspires Jessie to perform her own acts of mischief, unofficially becoming mischief-maker number 202 in an effort to cheer up her eccentric neighbour, Mrs Moran, and to comfort her new schoolfriend, Theo. However, not everything is as it seems. As Jessie delves deeper into the real story behind the History, she becomes convinced her grandmother holds the key to a long-held family secret.

The History of Mischief is about the many things we do to try to escape grief, and the stories we tell in order to protect ourselves and those we love.

When This Bell Rings by Allison Rushby and Sarah Davis

This story within a story within a story celebrates the creative art of storytelling. In London's Belgravia, Tamsin lives next door to Edie St Clair, famous author of the ‘London of the Bells' series of graphic novels. With the series' tenth and final novel overdue, Tamsin offers her idol help and discovers that Edie can literally draw herself into her stories. When Edie goes missing, Tamsin draws herself into the novel and lands in a world of unexpected danger. The stakes couldn't be higher in this gripping adventure.

Rebel Gods by Will Kostakis

With the Monuments gone, newbie gods Connor, Sally and Locky must stop the rebel gods from reducing the world to ruin. Trouble is, they don't know how. While Sally searches for answers and Locky makes plans to change the world, Connor struggles to keep up appearances as an ordinary teenager. But when a rebel god offers them a deal to end the chaos, their lives are turned upside down and they're forced to reckon with the question: who should decide the fate of the world?

Rebel Gods is the gripping conclusion to Monuments, a Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2019, from YA superstar, Will Kostakis. It's a heartfelt look at family, friendship and the parallel lives we lead.

You Were Made For Me by Jenna Guillaume

The day I created a boy started out like any other. Katie didn't mean to create a boy. A boy like a long-lost Hemsworth brother: six-foot tall with floppy hair and eyes like the sky on a clear summer's day; whose lips taste like cookie dough and whose skin smells like springtime. A boy who is completely devoted to Katie. He was meant to be perfect. But he was never meant to exist.

Spotlight by Solli Raphel

Following on from the success of Limelight, this new collection of poetry illuminates the social interests of Solli's generation in a thought-provoking style, including a mix of traditional poems and brand-new performance poems. It covers topics from connection to bullying and pinpoints climate change as a key concern with poems like Solli's Greenpeace collaboration piece 'Let's Make More Minutes Count!'.

Spotlight also contains five non-fiction chapters with advice, tips and plenty of activities for kids and teens. Solli encourages readers to find their voice and learn the forms and occupations of writing, as well as discusses how to use and gain a platform, with ways to instigate change and become a wordsmith themselves. He shares his experiences, ideas and advice on how the reader can create a sustainable future and discover ways to help create change, while looking at trends such as veganism and zero waste.

Everyone can be proactive in shaping the future so let's stand in solidarity.

Where we began by Christie Nieman

Seventeen-year-old Anna is running into the night. Fleeing her boyfriend, her mother, and everything she has known. She is travelling into the country, to the land and the grandparents she has never met, looking for answers to questions that have never been asked. For every family has secrets. But some secrets - once laid bare - can never be forgiven. A dark, deeply compelling, coming-of-age YA novel from the author of As Stars Fall.

St Joseph's College, Echuca

Issue 14 · 03 Sep 2020

In this issue