Australian bookshops respond to COVID-19

With fear ramping up in the face of Coronavirus, it is great to see Australian bookshops taking an active lead in addressing the isolation that many may or will feel over the coming weeks and months.

Just this morning I received a newsletter from Avenue Bookstore which offers HOME DELIVERY for books purchased to the value of $30.

And yesterday, Books+Publishing published an article addressing how booksellers are responding to the crisis.   Included in this article is an annotated list of bookshops across Australia.  Well worth a look.

To help book buyers in Melbourne, Alan Vaarwerk has taken the initiative of creating a Google Map showing which bookshops home deliver!

Awesome!

I can’t think of a better way for us to get through this horrendous time than by disappearing into the parallel universe created between the covers of a book!

The benefits of reading books …..

The last time I wrote about the value of reading, I latched onto the words of my TV buddies – The Simpsons – when they proclaimed: Books have an amazing power!

But when I come across a visual which says (nearly) all that I write, think and feel, I just love it!!

KidsNews Book Club

A couple of weeks ago I published a post titled: KidsNews: a great resource! on NovaNews, my other blog.  While detailing much that could be found on this website, I intentionally saved the best for this blog!!

Scroll down to the bottom of the KidsNews website to find a link titled Book Club.   Before you click on the link though, be sure you’ve got a stretch of time up your sleeve to read, explore and imagine how the various links on this page could be used with students. With competitions, announcements of competition winners (including links to their winning stories), interviews with authors, articles about up coming publications, there’s so much to be explored and enjoyed.

The Kids News website brings news stories to classrooms in a fun, accessible and engaging way, and we are delighted to add our books to the mix to help teachers and parents get kids reading.”

Informative and appealing.  With a well structured classroom activity, it’s hard to imagine students not being drawn into this website!

How great it would be though if the people behind the scenes of KidsNews could be persuaded to extend this website to teen readers.   Innovative and appealing online Book Clubs such as this would be a great magnet for tech savvy teens!

The other wife – Michael Robotham

When Joe is informed that his father, a celebrated surgeon, has been badly injured after a brutal attack, he expected to find his mother at his bedside.  Instead he found another woman who told Joe that she was his other wife.  Despite police advice to not interfere, Joe, a clinical psychologist, starts his own investigation to sort out the truth behind this woman’s story.  A fabulous fast paced read!!

Rating: *****
Theme Fiction:  Psychological Thriller
Suitable:  Year 11-12+

The book ninja – Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus

When Frankie Rose, working in in the Little Brunswick Street Bookshop and desperate to find love, accidentally kisses the nose of a customer who comes in looking for the latest and best YA novel, she never imagined the chain of events that would transpire to change her life. Humorous, with possibly an ounce too much sex for some young readers, this fast paced read keeps you guessing to the very end. Based on the highly successful efforts of two young women who started Books on the Rail in Melbourne, an enterprise which has now spread country wide, the passion for all things books and literature shines through the pages of this, their first novel.

Rating:  ****
Theme Fiction:  Romance
Suitable:  Year 8-10

Only passionate Teacher Librarians or teachers of English and Literacy need apply!

An amazing opportunity exists for passionate Teacher Librarians or Teachers of English and Literacy to be awarded a $15,000 scholarship.

Offered by the Australian Reading Agency, the 2020 Reading Australia Fellowship, was announced late last year.

The Fellowship, worth up to $15,000, will support an experienced teacher or teacher librarian to undertake professional skills development and career-enhancing opportunities.

The opportunity to be funded to develop skills and make a difference to students in our schools, is too good to miss.  Application details are listed on the Copyright Agency website.  Applications are due by:  1.00pm 20th July 2020

Australian Children’s Laureate 2020-2021

The new Australian Children’s Laureate has just been announced!

Having written more than 60 books for children, including novels, picture books, non-fiction books and a play, Ursula Dubosarsky will spend the next two years traveling throughout the country promoting the joy and importance of reading.

While following in the tracks of Morris Gleitzman, the previous Australian Children’s Laureate will not be easy, Dubosarsky has already set her sites high.  Using the theme ‘Read for your life’ Dubosarsky has stated that her aim is to get teens reading!

Australia’s new Children’s Laureate has urged all parents to sign up their children to local libraries and visit weekly, worried that younger readers may not develop a lifetime appreciation of reading as they move into adolescence and adulthood……

“Reading is a lifetime project, it’s not something you learn, and that’s it,” she said. “To be a good reader you have to read all the time. It’s like learning to swim but only doing one lap. You won’t be able to save yourself.”

The Age: New children’s laureate worries for teen readers by Linda Morris. February 11, 2020

Check out the video of Dubosarsky on Story Box to get a feel of where the next two years are headed:

Read more about the concept of Australian Children’s Laureate on their website.

The power of one book!

Apart from being a most beautiful installation, the message shared states emphatically the power one book can hold!

Transforming literature into sculpture by inserting just one book into the base of a colossal 75 x 13 foot wall, Mexican mixed media artist Jorge Méndez Blake  makes a powerful statement.  Inserting a copy of Franz Kafka’s The Castle between the floor and the first layer of books, Blake reveals the power of a single book, a metaphor for how a small idea can have a monumental effect.

 

Book Fountain

Located in Budapest, this book fountain brings warm and fuzzy feelings to me of reading and the joy of reading.  Located in Egyetem Square in Budapest, it was built in 2012.

 

Things book lovers do!

I came across this great reading promo cartoon recently:

Created by Hedger Humor, a cartoonist who aims to find the laughter in everyday moments, this really does cut straight to the heart of the joy that books bring to us when we contemplate or envision ourselves reveling in the next good read.

It’s just great!!