Future Fiction

It is not Sci-Fi, yet it is fiction with a future focus. It is fiction that expresses what could happen with the global change our world is experiencing, in various ways and perspectives. The genre “eco-thriller” is on the rise and it is as exciting as crime, adventure or detective stories. Plus, it could turn out true!

Teenage reads

Carbon Diaries, Sacy Lloyd

2015. Britain governement implements a carbon card to ration it. You take a car? You use up some of your monthly allowance. You light up your fan? You use up more carbon points, and they disappear far quicker than you would expect. Laura is a normal urban teenager who loves music and tries to live a normal life. Everybody will adapt differently to this new situation. Then disaster strikes… Laura tells about it all in her diary, in a realistic and witty style. Award-winning series.

Empty, by Susan Weyn

In a town in the US, the coming prom is all that matters to these high school students. Being rich and popular or different… But when electricity runs out, and petrol stations close one after the other, nothing is easy anymore. And the coming cyclone transforms all life in survival mode… But solutions exists, if you can shift your mind to them…

On thin ice, by Jamie Bastedo

Set in a small Artic town nowadays and following the talented Ashley, this book opens to a rarely described culture, where reality and myths merge. Impacts of climate change are central to the plot although never sermonic. A rich, suspenseful, true-like novel. Multi-award winner.

More Adult reads

Solar, by Ian McEwan

Beard surfs the wave of fame he won with his physics Nobel price . When he “inherits” the plans for creating artificial photosynthesis power stations, he tries to save the world from climate change and save himself too…

Island of shattered dreams, by Chantal Spitz

Meet several generations of a family living on a remote atoll, their loves, their connection to their land, and their struggles when French engineers come to install a nuclear test plant on their island… This book opens to the Pacific Islanders ways of viewing the world, which is quite wide and profound, like the ocean that surrounds them. Beautiful, moving, unforgettable.

Children reads

The Lorax, by Dr Seuss, “who speaks for the trees”… and more popular than ever before…
The Paperbag prince, by Colin Thompson, about this old man who lives happily in a bus on a dump;
George saves the world by lunchtime, by Jo Readman and Ley Roberts, to discover how everyday actions can affect the world around.

And many others

• J. R. R. Tolkien, deep connection with nature in the Middle-earth underlying his books.
• Carl Hiassen with lots of humour (Flush, Paradise Screwed…);
• Ursula Le Guin creating a world of literate people in a subsistence age (the Earthsea series);
• Margaret Mahy, denouncing coastal subdivisions in Kaitangata Twitch…

Do you know of any good one that I would add to my reading list?

Are E-books good for reading?

Teenagers are certainly engaged by screens but not necessarily for reading. The result of our poll says that 50% of teenagers would probably read more on e-books as they get very engaged by screens, while 25% acknowledge they would probably get distracted and 25% prefer paper books.

We currently have 2 Kindles available for loan in the library. They are constantly issued! For students struggling with reading, they are great as the font size can be chosen and most e-books can also be read aloud. We plan to get more e-readers.

This article describes how e-books can motivate young non-readers and reluctant readers into reading and lead them to paper books too. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/printissuecurrentissue/890540-427/are_ebooks_any_good.html.csp

A study http://www.fluency21.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=2298 compared reading behaviour, text comprehension, and information recall from ebooks, tablet PC and paper. The results show it is equivalent, except reading is faster on a Tablet PC !  

Other researchers however point out the lack of spacial navigation cues on the e-books (and on the Internet in general) that could impact the way our brain develops and reactivates memory http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/this-is-your-brain-on-ebooks/ As we are guinea pigs in this space, it is worthwhile checking and questioning regularly the impacts of the technologies on our well-being. In this case,  I would argue, if we keep a balanced life of enjoying the outdoors, as we do in Wanaka, we’ll be safe.

Conclusion is that the most important technology is still “READING”!

E-reading poll

The library is encouraging reading in all formats, paper books, newspapers and magazines, audio books, graphic novels… We are now considering e-books. Please answer the poll to help us design a service that suits your needs.

  

Please leave a comment below to complement your answers. Thank you.

New VERY interesting Reference book

Do you want to know everything without spending too much time to read?

Check this new book from the Reference shelve (spine 030.2 /R) and its clever visual way of presenting facts and stats.

Contents:

Earth: from space to water cycles, weather, natural disasters, record breakers…

Wealth of Nations (c) p. 140-141

People: from population to diets, beliefs, celebrations, school days…

Power: countries, political systems, human rights, business, crime and punishments…

Industries: world market, land use, energies, minerals, robots, shopping…

Connections: tourism and internet, media and satellites…

And for each chapter, a fascinating “World in one day” page.

Shop for books at Wheeler’s online and MACLIC benefits!

One of my main providers of new books is Wheelers because their range of books is huge (6.7 million books!), their website is well organised and easy to use and their prices are very competitive. You too can benefit from their service and this will raise funds for the college’s library. Simply select Mt Aspiring College at the checkout.

As I have advertised it in the past, some people did it! I was delighted to receive a credit note. It allows me to afford more new books for our library.

Thank you.

Reference Books

Visit the Reference area in Maclic along the wall on the right when you enter the library. Reference books are sources of information or facts: Encyclopaedias, dictionaries, atlases or books that gather all the knowledge on one subject. They contain an index to help you find quickly what you need.

Books are organised on the shelves along the DEWEY classification, like the knowledge area.

Generalities (0) start on the top right, with general encyclopaedias and World books, Guinness books of records.

Below are stored Social Science (3) books, with in particular a beautiful “Book of the People of the world” and Yearbooks which provide for a comprehensive statistical picture of life in New Zealand.

 Then are Dictionaries and thesaurus (4), which are great to find synonyms and keywords.

 Then are the Science (5) reference books, with a new set of scientific discoveries books, several science encyclopaedias, including one of the Animal world.

Under Science are Technology (6) books, that include Health and body Encyclopedias, followed by Arts (7) and sports guides.

At the bottom are literature (8) guides and the very useful Biography (92) books which trace the lives and achievements of famous people.

On the left shelf are the History (9) encyclopedias and Chronicles books which detail events and happenings year after year. Last are atlases to learn about places and geography.

They cannot be borrowed from the library, because:
- you generally only need them briefly in search of a particular piece of information (you can photocopy)
- they need to be always available for other library users.
- they are often very expensive, too large and fragile to travel in school bags.

The reference section is where to start a research and where to browse and gather nectar.

Here is help to find information from references online.

Books for Christmas

Add books on your Christmas wish list

By offering books for Christmas, parents express that books are valuable and provide hours of pleasure. You will even impress them if you ask for interesting books for Christmas !

It is wonderful to get some fiction book/s, NEW, just for you! It is also the occasion to get a better dictionary, or find a comprehensive book or encyclopaedia for your age or your latest interest. Astronomy? Myths? Dinosaurs? Favourite sport? Drawing? Science? Art? You would learn and enjoy so much from reading through such a book…

Visit your local bookshop with your parent/s or explore the Book list page for ideas.

Raise money for our library!

You can choose books among a large selection at very good prices online at www.wheelers.co.nz ; select “Mt Aspiring College” as recipient of the 10% credit at the check out.

You can also offer books for Christmas!

For younger siblings, you could purchase famous books about famous local sheep “Shrek”, by now famous local Tarras School and raise funds for MACLIC.

Shrek – The famous Hermit Sheep of Tarras – $16.00

• Shrek – New Zealand’s Celebrity Sheep – $18.00

Bring your order and payment to the library by 1st December for a pre Christmas delivery.

 All the funds collected will be used to purchase books for the library. Thank You!

Tip: Write a nice dedication on the title page. It makes it really special, for years…

Florence Micoud, MACLIC Librarian

Graphic Novels

A new study by  Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at Illinois University, shows that “comic books are just as sophisticated as other forms of literature, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other types of books”. Click here to read the University of Illinois press release.

There are several sorts of graphic novels:

Non-fiction graphic novels are bringing to life stories,  facts, figures or concepts. There are many historical and science graphic novels. Check out the Knowledge picture books section in the library to find for example:

• The story of Gladiators and the Colosseum, 937 /P *
• Surprise attack! the Battle of Shiloh, 970 /P
• Understanding Global Warming with MAX Axiom super scientist, 363.7 /P
• Magic school bus books (for primary pupil). “Horrible” books are half graphic and are a good continuation of Ms Frizzle’s adventures (many are stored in the yellow box on the LEXILE book stand, others in the relevant Knowledge section).
• Funny weather : everything you don’t want to know about climate change but probably should know, by Kate Evans, Knowledge section, 363.7
• Warning: Asterix books are not historical graphic novels, despite being quite well documented and smart  

Retold Classic literature is designed to help young students to access classic literature with a twist. The original text will generally be simplified. In MACLIC you will find:

• A Christmas Carol, adapted from Charles Dickens, DIC /P
• Jane Eyre, adapted from Charlotte Bronte, BRO /P
• The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, abridged from C.S. Lewis, LEW /P
• Mr William Shakespeare’s plays. The words that Shakespeare actually wrote are spoken by the actors and the plot of the story is told underneath the pictures, SHA /P

It is a great way to access to our cultural heritage, but you actually miss the literary part of the works, so if you are a good reader, choose the original unchanged text.

Graphic novel series, like Tintin, Superman or Mangas are enjoyable and do help readers because they have relatively few words and the images contribute to the comprehension. All my children have become fluent readers in French thanks to our many comic books and once they can read, they can read more substantial texts.

Graphic novels stand alone are often remarkable pieces of art, combining plot, words and drawings. In some comics, nearly each picture could be made into a beautiful poster.  For example:

• Rapunzel’s revenge, by Shannon, Dean and Nathan Hale, HAL /P
• The invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick, Fiction, Fiction area, SEL (This is a different form of graphic novel where text pages and image pages alternate)

My favourite ones are the graphic novels with a message. The drawings add weight, meaning or emotions to the text. Check out:

• A child in Palestine, by Naji Al-Ali, ALA /P
• Palestine, by Joe Sacco, SAC /P
• Persepolis: the story of a childhood, by Marjane Satrapi, SAT /P
• Persepolis 2: The story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi, SAT /P
• Maus : a survivor’s tale, by Art Spiegelman, SPI /P

* /P means the books lives on the Picture Books Shelves

Free ebooks on your computer

The Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, as a voluntary non-for-profit organization with the mission to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks, both to preserve literary works and to promote free literacy for all. Volunteers around the world scan and load works from the public domain (i. e. not copyrighted). It holds more than 130.000 references so I recommend you start from the Children’s Bookshelf. There are also free Audiobooks. Project Gutenberg is the respectable grandfather of ebooks! All formats available.

The University of Virginia Library’s Etext Center gives access to over 2,100 publicly-available ebooks, mainly classic British and American fiction, major authors, children’s literature (more than 120 titles), and much more.  You can read online or download Microsoft Reader to read on your computer (with the option to hear it as well -electronic voice).

In our country, discover the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre’s free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials, and its 1500 literature e-items. It is really interesting but fairly advanced, so I have written to the Director of the project to get a Youth category…

Public Book Shelf is a free online library where you can sample and read romance novels online. The selection is quite large (because many books do contains some romance), but there are disrupting ads and you can only read online.

Book Glutton has quite a lot of free ebooks and you can listen to an electronic voice while reading. Here you can connect to groups and contribute. However, you will often get the “Pay now to see the rest” message. There are many other ebooks providers who will give away a few free titles but actually sell ebooks.

Do you know any other good sites?

Another beautiful day in Wanaka!

We, librarians, are not paid to read the books but to process them. The first step is to record them in the database and to do this accurately, I read the back cover, the publisher’s page, the table of contents and I skim through the book to check the reading level and know what the book is really about. Then I can type a summary and relevant keywords in the record of the book.

This is how I find pearls, like this one in the book “A Land of two halves”, by Joe Bennett. London: Scribner, 2004. (shelved in Knowledge Area, 306.4 with other Kiwiana books). 

“Wisps of mist swirl above the lake, and the lower slopes of the mountains are wearing fluffy underskirts of cloud. Above them, in the early sun, the snow looks impossibly smooth and dense, like the icing on a wedding cake. It’s going to be a good day.”  (Wanaka Wordsworth, page 130).