Guest Authors - Mark Greenwood and Ursula Dubosarsky with Andrew Joyner

The Year 5 & 6 students were extremely lucky to have a talk by the author Mark Greenwood. Mark is the author of 14 children's picture books with  historical themes. Some are for younger readers whilst others are better suited to older children because of their length and theme. Mark spoke about the stories to be found in Australian history and described how he goes about researching the history behind his books. He held all of us (teachers and children alike) spellbound with his true tales of adventure and bravery, ghosts and ill-fated fortune seekers.  The boys were truly engaged and hopefully came away with a new sense that history is interesting.

You can read more about Mark Greenwood and his work here


Over in the EY, students from Foundation to Year 4 were entertained by the author-illustrator team of Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner.  Andrew used several students as his model which the children really enjoyed.
According to Shalain in Year 2 "people went up and he drew them but he turned them into koalas!"
Archie in Year 2  said "It was really good to see all the pictures he drew"
The students got to draw along with Andrew and Felicity Renaudin is organising a montage of their work to be displayed outside the art room in the EY building.

Michael Palmer models for the French koala

The finished product

Using the Xavier online catalogue

Year 5 students have been learning to use the online catalogue this week. The catalogue can be accessed via the Xavier Portal.  Xavier Portal  Click on the Library link and then onto the World Cat link. Students can use the catalogue to search all of the Xavier libraries or just the Kostka Hall library. It can be used at school or home.  In future lessons we will learn how to create an account so students can reserve books and check the status of their account.

Speed Dating

Speed dating with books

The year threes and fours have been speed dating with books in the library. During class time they sat around the table and had two minutes to consider a book for borrowing. Each student had a book in front of them and they were given one minute to look at the cover, read the blurb and explore the text. They then passed the book onto the next person to review. If the book was of interest, they could hold onto it for borrowing.

The aim of this exercise was to encourage students to consider books that they may not normally choose. Many new series, genre and titles were discovered for reading.

By Ms Langford.

Visiting Authors in Melbourne

James Paterson and David Walliams in Melbourne

We have been lucky to have some high profile authors visit Melbourne. Recently we have been to see both James Paterson and David Walliams.

James Paterson

James Paterson is an extremely successful adult writer who has turned his hand to writing children's books. In the Bellarmine library his Middle School series have been very popular. He is a passionate advocate for children reading and in his talk mentioned that he had, had difficulty persuading his son to read. His advice was to insist that children read, provide them with loads of interesting books and limit screen time until they have read. In his words "Books are Love" and as parents, to send a child into the world without being able to read well is to seriously disadvantage them.  We can all agree on that.

David Walliams

David Walliams ( the tall one in Little Britain) is extremely entertaining and kids love him and his books. For over an hour he had a theatre full of 10 year olds ( and their (mostly) mothers) rapt. He was quite a charmer! As one of the boys we were with put it. "he kept us quiet!" To hear the thunderous applause at the end and the queue for book signings snaking down Collins St was a librarian's dream! We have all of David's books in the library and they are always in demand.









Both of these author events were organised by the Wheeler's Centre. Also the program for the Melbourne Writers Festival held in August will be released soon and author events can be pre-booked.

The Dewey Decimal System

                                                                            Year 5's learn about the Dewey Decimal System

Melvil Dewey

In recent classes Year 5 students have been studying  the basics of  the Dewey Decimal system (DDC) which is used by libraries worldwide to organise non-fiction resources.  This brilliant system was invented by American Melvil Dewy in 1876. In short, the DDC assigns a number between 000-999 to subjects and books are given a number appropriate to their subject. This means books are shelved so that similar subjects are located together, making it easy to search and browse. Despite being invented so long ago the DDC is still widely used around the world.  The point of teaching students about the DDC is, that it makes it easier for them to use the library not just here at Kostka but also at the senior school, the local library and university. Our aim is to make students independent users of the library and develop their information literacy competencies. For some fun practising with Dewey there is a great online game students can use to practice their library skills. 
Order in the Library
N.B: Does not work on an iPad.
For a quick and easy guide to Dewey click here

Great Online book websites

This week in Year 6 library classes we have looked at using Fantastic Fiction as a way to choose books and find out about authors. (www.fantasticfiction.co.uk) . This is an excellent website that provides much information about authors and their books. The students were introduced to this site and explored it's content with a worksheet. The purpose of these classes is to give students some tools to help them find and select books to read. Children can sometimes find it difficult to self-select books and websites like these can provide useful links that excite and inspire their imaginations. For children who are hard core readers, Fantastic Fiction is a store house of entertaining information that will enrich their reading life.


Other useful websites
Amazon is great for browsing Click here for Amazon
Goodreads - search for booklists of various genres or authors
Click here for Goodreads
What should I read next  Click here for What should I read next 
Whichbook   Click here for Whichbook
Your Next Read  Click here for Your Next Read

Anzac Day books and other war books

Anzac Day 2015
As we all know Anzac Day 2015 has been universally commemorated by Australians. In library lessons this week we have highlighted some of the excellent picture books, novels, memoirs and non-fiction accounts written around the events of WW1. We have also taken the opportunity to explore the genre of war books in general. Students have looked at the huge variety of books written about conflicts around the world and throughout time. We have also considered why we should read war books. For more information on this class Click here for a War Book genre powerpoint

Anzac Day display in the Bellarmine library