by Sarah Ranby

Library News

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Easter is upon us, and our student Librarians are doing a stellar job of bringing the Easter fun to our space this week! Junior students have enjoyed completing Easter colouring-in over conversation while relaxing in our stunning setting. I have been busy compiling Easter reading bundles too; we have had egg-cellent uptake with both students and staff completing a google form to make reading their requests. When people share their reading habits with me, it is a real treat to be able to match them with some titles they might really love! Check your emails if you’d like to receive your own personalised reading bundle from the Library. Further to this, students can anticipate more Easter fun this week with (paper!) Easter eggs hidden in the books on our shelves. If you find an Easter egg hidden in the book you have issued, bring it to Mrs Ranby to claim your (real!) Easter egg!

Amongst the Easter celebrations, students across year groups and curriculum areas seem to be deep in research at the moment! You can support your young person in their research by assisting them in navigating the following reliable, useful online resources:

If you require further support in learning how to use these research tools, please make contact with the Library.

A reminder too that our collection holds a number of good old fashioned books (!) students may find useful, and for that matter, more manageable than engaging in online research. It’s always worth asking your friendly local Librarian what she may be able to conjure up! Beyond our own collection here at St. Hilda’s, we also have access to the National Library collection, with books being delivered from Wellington or Christchurch to St. Hilda’s within days of a request. Get in touch with sranby@shcs.school.nz for more information on this service.

Mrs Ranby recommends…

Image by: Sarah Ranby

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.

Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realise the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.

Sarah Ranby

Librarian