Find out what is happening in our library

New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

Last week the winners of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults were announced.  There were some fantastic books on the shortlists this year, with Gavin Bishop's stunning book, Aotearoa: The New Zealand Story being awarded the Margaret Mahy Award for the best book in New Zealand for children.

A lucky group of students got to come to a special event on Monday to celebrate the book awards finalists.  We went to St Margaret's College to hear 6 of the finalist authors talk about their books.  Alison Balance told us all about sharks and how they tag them for research, Gavin Bishop told us about the process he went through to create his book, and Suzanne Main told us about how she became a published author.  It was really inspiring to hear these authors and illustrators and there were lots of kids very eager to read their books afterwards.

Family Book Quiz

On Wednesday 12 September I will be running a Family Book Quiz in our library from 6:30-7:30.  This will be a fun evening full of questions to challenge your knowledge of children's books and the characters in them.  You can have a team of up to 5, with a mixture of kids and adults.  There will be 5 rounds of 10 questions and they'll be questions that everyone in the family will be able to answer.

You can register your family, along with your team name, by emailing me - zac.mccallum@halswell.school.nz.  There is plenty of time to get a team together and I'll put a reminder in the next newsletter.

Events coming up in the library

We have a few special events coming up in the library later this term, including Poetry Week (from Monday 20 August), International Week (from Monday 3 September), Maori Language Week (from 10 September), Roald Dahl Day on Thursday 13 September, and Conservation Week (from Monday 17 September).  Keep your eyes peeled for activities and competitions.

Do you speak another language? I need you!

As part of International Week I would love to have some parents to come and share a story or two from your culture.  It could either be at the start of the day or it could be during our first lunch break at 12pm.  If you are interested please email me.