Friday 28 March

Another great session!
Once again we went over the blog and showed all the lit club members how to add a comment - we really want you to get involved on the blog so we have created an account for all members to use if you do not have a gmail account - please come and see Mrs Earl and she will give you the login and password.

Book Reviews
Please email your book reviews to Mrs Earl and she will place them on the blog. You can also let us know when you are ready to present your author if you are working towards your Lit Club bronze badge.

This Week's Book

The Dark - Lemony Snicket

You can watch the book trailer here.

Lemony Snicket has written many other books - Have you read any?

Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Snicket is the author of several children's biographies, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events (his best-known work) and appearing as a character within the series. Lemony Snicket was born before you were, and is likely to die before you as well. His family has roots in a part of the country which is now under water, and his childhood was spent in the relative splendor of the Snicket Villa, which has since become a factory, a fortress and a pharmacy and is now, alas, someone else's villa. His true birthplace and details about his family remain a mystery.

Do you know any other books written by Lemony Snicket? Let us know which ones you have read and whether you enjoyed them.

We introduced some Graphic Novels.

Graphic novels tell the story with pictures and text. We handed out a few graphic novels and are looking toward to hearing from you on the blog to see how you enjoyed them.

Session Six - Friday March 21

Our blog
We had a good look around the blog on Friday and showed everyone where they can comment. All Lit club members are encouraged to get involved on the blog - we want to hear about what you are reading and we just have not time to hear from everyone at Lit Club on a Friday.

We are beginning to add the book reviews to the book review page so keep an eye on the changes and get involved!!

A notice has gone home to parents with a generic lit club email and password that the members can use to comment on the blog of parents are unhappy with setting up gmail accounts.

Summer Passports
For all those who handed in their summer passports we held a draw on Friday with some excellent prizes. @ people received $20 tines vouchers and 2 people received new sets of headphones.

Look - It's me and a book!
The Holiday photo draw was completed at Assembly with two prizes for Teams Rutherford and Sheppard and two prizes for Teams Batten and Hillary

This Week's  Book

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made

 written by Stephan Pastis

Watch the trailer here

In the style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis follows a kid detective with a polar bear business partner.

“My name is Failure. Timmy Failure. I am the founder, President and CEO of the best detective agency in town, probably in the world. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made is a historical record of my life as a detective. It has been rigorously fact-checked. All the drawings in here are by me. I tried to get my business partner to do the illustrations, but they were not good.”

Timmy Failure: Now Look What You've Done

 written by Stephan Pastis

Watch the trailer here

The clueless, comically self-confident kid detective returns in a sequel to the New York Times bestseller Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made.

"When you lose hope, find it." —Timmy Failure

He doesn’t like to pull rank. To reveal that he’s this guy: Timmy Failure, founder, president, and CEO of the greatest detective agency in town, perhaps the nation. But he is. 

And he’s about to crack the biggest case of his generation: a school competition to find a stolen globe. It’s his ticket to bringing home a $500 prize, which is guaranteed to set him up for life. But someone is clearly trying to game the system. Hoodwink. Con. Defraud. So it’s up to Timmy Failure, with the dubious help of Total, his lazy polar-bear partner, and his unlikely new ally, eccentric Great-Aunt Colander, to find a way to avenge these shenanigans. Defeat this injustice.
If he can only get his entry form in on time.


Get involved!
Let us know what you are reading or what you want to read…
Let us know if there are any books that you would like us to introduce …
What else would you like to see happening at Lit Club?

Session Five   - Friday 14th March 2014
 Students who have returned Summer Challenge passports and submitted  photos on the library windows for  the Holiday Competition will go in a draw and be drawn out next week at Assembly for the book voucher prizes.
Kids Lit Quiz
We are beginning to prepare for the Kids Lit Quiz. There will be two this year - The year 7/8's received a notice about this last week. The notice is available in the news centre of the school website. The Year 5/6 quiz will be held at school and we will invite Hoon Hay school to enter as well.

What did we talk about today?

Author Presentation : 

Amber and Maddison are working towards achieving their Bronze Lit Club badge and one of the requirements  is to present an author , which they did today .. Well done ladies on your presentation of L.M.Montgomery. Many Thanks

L.M. Montgomery ( Lucy Maud Montgomery) 

(Anne of Green Gables)

Key Facts :

Genre: Childrens Fiction

Born in 1874 in Prince Edward Island Canada (Died 1942)

Anne Green Gables was her first book (published in 1908)

Most widely known for her book , Anne of Green Gables and the following Anne books.

She has written many books but well known for the 8 books featuring the orphan Anne Shirley from Prince Edward Island.

Anne of Green Gables still a very popular childrens fiction choice throughout the world especially in Japan.

The setting for the Anne Books is Prince Edward Island in Canada

L.M. Montgomery never lived on Prince Edward Island again after her marriage in 1911. Yet, she immortalized this tiny province through her wonderful descriptions of life, nature, community, and people on Prince Edward Island. All but one of her 20 books are set on Prince Edward Island. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people, directly or indirectly influenced by the way of life she depicted in her writing, come to Prince Edward Island to see the place she loved so much..

This Week's Book is...

The 1999 Newbury Award Winner...

Holes

by Louis Sachar

Stanley Yelnats was given a choice. The judge said, "You may go to jail, or you may go to Camp Green Lake." Stanley was from a poor family. He had never been to camp before.

The trouble started when Stanley was accused of stealing a pair of shoes donated by basketball great Clyde "Sweetfeet" Livingston to a celebrity auction. In court, the judge doesn't believe Stanley's claim that the shoes fell from the sky onto his head. And yet, that's exactly what happened. Oddly, though, Stanley doesn't blame the judge for falsely convicting him. Instead, he blames the whole misadventure on his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." Thanks to this benighted distant relative, the Yelnats family had been cursed for generations. For Stanley, his current troubles are just a natural part of being a Yelnats.

At Camp Green Lake, the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize that there is  more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake.. The boys are digging holes because the treacherous warden is searching for something, and before long Stanley begins his own search—for the truth.

Fate conspires to resolve it all—the family curse, the mystery of the holes, the drought that destroyed Green Lake, and also, the legend of Kissing Kate Barlow, an infamous outlaw of the Wild West.. The great wheel of justice has ground slowly for generations, but now it is about to reveal its verdict.  

This ibook that demonstrates  true friendship and not judge others by their looks - or their unfortunate mistakes in life.This book has  a personality of its own and humour.

ENJOY!!!

In the story Holes by Louis Sachar , what do you observe about the main characters surname??

STANLEY YELNATS

Lois Sachar,is also the author  of the Wayside School series, Sachar , knows how to make kids laugh. And there are laughs galore in this popular book, series. Wayside School was supposed to be 30 classrooms, one story high; but by mistake it was built straight up 30 stories. It is about teachers who turn students into apples and kids who have extraordinary imaginations.... An easy read and so funny ......

The Sideways Stories From Wayside School is a popular series of 3 books by Louis Sachar. Sideways Stories From ,Wayside School is Falling Down, and Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger

    

Available from the School Library .

Enjoying reading your responses to the quiz question  .....

"If you were an author what would your Pseudonym be?.....

Before next weeks Lit Club , consider confirming what your pseudonym would be and  share it with us on the blog???

Session Four - Friday 7 March 2014

Great to see the last of the passports being handed in. Thanks. I hope you all noticed the photos on the library windows from the Holiday Competition. Names will go in a draw and be drawn out next week at Assembly for the book voucher prize.

Kids Lit Quiz
We are beginning to prepare for the Kids Lit Quiz. There will be two this year - The year 7/8's received a notice about this today. The notice is available in the news centre of the school website. The Year 5/6 quiz will be held at school and we will invite Hoon Hay school to enter as well.

What did we talk about today?

• Pseudonyms - is a made-up name used by a person to conceal his/her identity. Most commonly associated with writers and are referred to as "pen names."

We have added a page for pseudonyms - click the tab at the top of this post to find out more about authors who use pen names.

This Week's Book

Liar & Spy - Rebecca Stead

When seventh grader Georges (the s is silent) moves into a Brooklyn apartment building, he meets Safer, a twelve year old coffee-drinking loner and self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. his assignment? tracking the mysterious Mr X who lives in the apartment upstairs. Bit as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: how far is too far to go for your only friend?

We have a copy of this book in our library. Watch the trailer

Rebecca Stead won the Newbury Medal for her book When You Reach Me in 2010.

Mary Poppins

Siobhan introduced us to Mary Poppins - written by PL Travers and talked about the Movie Saving Mr Banks.

Saving Mr Banks is the story of how the movie Mary Poppins came to be.

from wikipedia:

"When Walt Disney's daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers' "Mary Poppins," he made them a promise-one that he didn't realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine. But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney's plans for the adaptation."

The Diary of Anne Frank

from wikipedia

The Diary of a Young Girl (also known as The Diary of Anne Frank) is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Tell us what you think about the books we are choosing for Lit Club sessions, do you have any suggestions for books you would like us to introduce? Join in, comment, let us know what you are thinking.