Ah, serendipity

Every now and then when you're looking for something you find something else entirely.
Some people call it serendipity.

Last week, this amazing book almost literally jumped out at me.
It was tucked away in the shelves, just sitting there - until I had to take it out to weed.
And when my hand went towards it, it fell out of the shelf. Am not sure how this happened, but it felt a bit like magic. It was definitely one of those random moments.

The name of the book is The Conch bearer. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has written some great books for adults, but it turns out she's also responsible for this fantastic book for kids.

No one had borrowed it for a while. But it was in good condition and still looked fairly attractive. So, it was time to take it home and see what it was like.

After Anand's father disappears everything changes. His family is forced to leave their beautiful apartment to live in a shack in the nearby shanty town. His sister has been struck down by a mysterious illness and his mother barely earns enough for them to get by. Luckily for the family, the boy is able to get a job at a local tea stall.

One day, when the boy has faced a particularly cruel day, he wishes hard for a better life.
For even though he knows a lot of people who don't, Anand believes in magic.
It is almost at that very moment he meets an interesting old man who asks him to go on a dark and dangerous journey...

It's an amazing story and well worth a read. Will definitely not be weeding it.

You can find this book in the primary library - it would be good for kids who are already in secondary and prep too. And all you teachers and parents out there might enjoy it too!

The Pasta Detectives

We buy books for the school library in many different ways... student and staff requests, reading library publications, book shop handouts, browsing in book shops, reading blogs and choosing books from popular authors knowing that everyone will most likely want to read their newest offering. These are only some of the tools that we use. So of course, reviews are incredibly important to us. Because we don't just want a good library, we want a great one. So we need to pay careful attention to what we put on the shelves.

Lately two things seem to have popped up a lot. One is Angry birds - which appears to mentioned in numerous magazine articles, blogs, and probably soon in a book (for some reason you can buy Angry Birds hats outside MBK - everyone needs a plush, red, fake fur hat in 30 degree heat!) and the other is The Pasta Detectives by Andreas Steinhofel.

A lot of people are talking about The Pasta Detectives. And the reviews have been incredibly positive. It sounded good, so it was time to try it out for myself.

Rico finds a piece of pasta on the footpath outside his house. And then he decides to find out how it got there. It's a 'Who cares?' kind of moment. A piece of pasta? But strangely enough, the way that Rico puts it, you do want to find out where the story is going.

Interwoven with the pasta detective work is the story of Mr 2000 - a kidnapper who takes children and then demands 2000 Euros for their safe return. Add themes of friendship, solo parenting, being different and you have a pretty awesome story.

Rico has some kind of something about him that makes him different from other kids (it's either a mental or learning disability), but you never really find out what it is. It doesn't matter. It is Rico's attention to detail that is the key to the story.

If Angry Birds turns out to be as good as this book, I will be very happy.

What makes a great picture book?

Remember this guy?

Thinking back, you can probably remember some great children's picture books.
If you're still in Primary school there might be some that you love and read right now. If you're older, you might have given them up in favour of novels, graphic novels, magazines or a whole bunch of other things (Wii, Xbox, Nintendogs...)

But hopefully when you were small you got to read (or had read to you) some amazing and memorable picture books.

A good picture book is not easy to create. You need the right amount of words on each page, with just the right font. The text needs to work with the pictures so that when you look at the story it all blends together like magic. A good writer can make or break the whole experience. So can an illustrator. A good picture book relies on balance of the whole.

There are many, many wonderful picture books out there. Stories like Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, William Steig's Shrek, the Meg and Mog books by Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski, Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg... you get the picture. Chances are you have heard of, remember reading or have watched movie versions of these stories. Actually, when writing this post one of our secondary students asked me for a picture book from his childhood - The Tiger who came to tea by Judith Kerr. He is hoping to adapt it for a school project.

Every country has their own favourite picture books. Some classic NZ ones are Lynley Dodd's Hairy MacLary books, The Witch in the Cherry Tree by Margaret Mahy and Greedy Cat by Joy Cowley... but there are many others! Not sure what the Thai ones are - will have to ask around!

It's really fun to wonder which new stories will become tomorrow's classics.

When pondering the idea of a successful picture book, it makes sense to consult with the experts about what exactly makes a good picture book great.
Anthony Browne (an amazing picture book artist himself) talks here about the Best New Illustrators award from Booktrust in the UK and his ideas about picture book illustration in this Guardian slide show.