Book Reviews

A Street Cat Named Bob is an inspirational story about second chances.  This book provides a lot of insight into how we as a society choose to ignore people who are homeless and unemployed.  We don’t view them as people who have stories and feelings.  We see them from a different view through this book.  Bob the cat provides humour and a sense of relief for both his companion and the reader.  It is a fabulous book and strongly recommended.

Bob reading about himself
http://www.bluecross.org.uk/files/Bob-book.jpg

Reviewed by Precious Year 11

A Street Cat Named Bob is a very good book to read.  It’s about how a man and his cat found hope on the streets.  This is a book written by James Bowen and the book is aimed at all ages able to read it.  It is a No 1 best seller.  “Heart-warming tale with a message of hope” the Daily Mail said.  “An insight into the injustice of life on the streets that’s by turns frustrating and life-affirming” said Tom Cox, in The Times.  The book is also available as an ebook.  But overall the book is a good read – that’s from a personal view anyway.

Reviewed by Marc Year 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdAFjB7AeYA

Convince the Critics competition

The competition has now closed.  We have had an excellent response and will be sifting through all the entries and announcing the winners after Easter.  There were lots of excellent suggestions for books that we must read; among the most popular titles were the Harry Potter books, Hunger Games, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and books by Jacqueline Wilson.

Thank you to all those who entered. 

 

Launch of Siobhan Dowd competition books

We had a great response to the launch of our new books in the Discovery library.  The students we invited to the preview events were impressed to hear about the librarians winning £1,000 worth of books for the school, enjoyed the free prize draw and did lots of browsing and borrowing.

Congratulations to the top borrowers from Years 7, 8 and 9, who won books, stationery and vouchers. 

They were:

Year 7 – top borrower from top borrowing form was Sean in 7CB

            Overall top borrower was Tate in 7SA

Year8 – top borrower from top borrowing form was Adrian in 8VC

            Overall top borrower was Chloe in 8CM

Year 9 – top borrower from top borrowing form was Lina in 9ML

Overall top borrower was Fae in 9DE

 

Blue Peter Book Awards 2013

There were two categories for this award.  The winner for Best Story went to Liz Pichon for Tom Gates: Genius Ideas, Mostly by Liz Pichon.  Among the runners up was Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes.

Winner for Best Book with Facts went to Nick Arnold and Tony De Saulles for Horrible Science: House of Horrors.  Among the runners up was Fantastic Mr Dahl by Michael Rosen. 

The judging panel for these awards included author Cressida Cowell and Librarian Jake Hope. Look out for these books in the Discovery Library!

Carnegie and Greenaway Award shortlist 2013 announced

CILIP’s Carnegie Medal is awarded each year for an outstanding book for children and young people.  The Carnegie shortlist this year includes eight excellent books, most of which are available now in the WML and Discovery libraries and the rest are on order.  Particular favourites of the Librarians are the debut novel Wonder by P.D. Palacio and Greyhound of a Girl by well loved author Roddy Doyle.  To find out more about the books that have been shortlisted go to Carnegie and Greenaway shortlist page.

The winner will be announced in June 2013.

Carnegie shortlist taken from the Carnegie and Greenaway Shadowing site

International Women’s Day 2013

Today (8^th March) is International Women’s Day, celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.    It can be traced back to the Suffragettes, who campaigned for women’s right to vote. 

For more information visit http://www.internationalwomensday.com/default.asp.

Meet the author!

Darren Shan, author of the popular Saga of Darren Shan and Demonata novels, will be at Waterstones, The Glades Shopping Centre, Bromley on Tuesday 19^th March at 5pm.  He will be signing copies of City, the eagerly anticipated third instalment of his Zom-B series.

You can find the first two Darren Shan series in the Discovery Library and his new series is on order and will be available soon!

World Book Day

World Book Day is a day set aside each year to celebrate reading, books, authors and illustrators.  This year it takes place on Thursday 7^th March.  We have distributed special World Book Day tokens to each pupil, with the exception of the Post 16 pupils who can collect one from the War Memorial Library on request.  These vouchers can either be exchanged at your local book shop for one of the World Book Day books or they can be used to get £1 off any book costing £2.99 or more.  You can use your voucher in any participating books shop from 25th February to 24th March 2013.

Among the World Book Day books on offer are:

 

·         Hang In There Bozo: The Ruby Redfort Emergency Survival Guide For Some Tricky Predicaments by Lauren Child

·         Tom Gates: Best Book Day Ever! (So Far) by Liz Pichon

·         The Chocolate Box Girls: Bittersweet by Cathy Cassidy

·         Tony Robinson’s Weird World of Wonders: Funny Inventions by Tony Robinson and Del Thorpe

·         Horrid Henry’s Guide to Perfect Parents By Francesca Simon and Tony Ross

·         The Diamond Brothers in…Two of Diamonds By Anthony Horowitz

From worldbookday.com

There is also an app available to download, containing exclusive new stories for World Book Day by top authors.  The stories will be available on the app for two months.

Don’t forget that we also have loads of new books for you to discover and read in the libraries!