This year we have made a big effort to update and expand the non-fiction books in the junior area of the library.

Non-fiction is hugely popular with students in the junior school and much of our collection was showing signs of love or age- especially the cooking and craft books and those for our youngest readers. It's been fun talking to the children about their areas of interest this year. Books on general knowledge, bugs, famous people, all kinds of animals, prehistory and dinosaurs, the ANZACs, drawing and poetry have all been really popular.

My challenge to the Year 4 and 5 classes last week was to take home a non-fiction book of their choice and to share one fact during their next visit. This was lots of fun and I certainly learned a lot. Many of the students have volunteered to share facts again next week.

Just a few of the fun facts from 4Ck and 5Br:

• Sperm whales sleep upright (Georgie)
• Red blood cells live around 30 days (Caroline)
• Australian soldiers took koalas and kangaroos on the ship with them to remind them of home (Iliana)
• Cheetahs don't roar but they can purr, chirp, and bleat (Beatrice)
• Coco Chanel's real name was Gabrielle and Coco was her stage name when she was a singer (Tirzah)
• Helen Keller was the first deaf, blind, and mute person to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (Grace)
• Cats have rods and cones in their eyes to help them see in the dark (Shubhrolima)
• Cats can sense when blood cells are dying (Samuel)
• Cats are allergic to some plants including crocuses (Ashiya)
• In the Ice Age people used whalebone to make houses as there weren't enough trees (Liam)
• Basking sharks can filter 1.3 million litres of water per hour (Carson)