High-interest Easy-to-read Books for Boys Year 9 / Year 10

So you do not like to read yet? Surely there are good books you will enjoy in the library.

How to find a book for you with the library catalogue:

What are YOU interested in? Hunting? Skateboarding? Dating? Humorous or Scary? Extreme? Type one word in the library catalogue. Or try to type the words “reluctant” or “easy”.

Scroll the list of results to find a book that you may like, open the record details and read the Subjects, Notes and keywords to decide if you will like it. 

How to find a book for you in the shelves:

Find narrow books, or book published by Barrington Stoke.

Look for large fonts and short chapters.

Read the blurb on the back of the book. Open the book. Read one paragraph. If there are more than two words you do not read or know, then find an easier book.

Browse the Graphic Novels and Breezy reads (picture books area).

Or pick a book from the lists below or ask your librarian

When you have chosen, always record your book at the issue desk.

Good Books

Title	Author	Description	Location
A.N.T.I.D.O.T.E.	Malorie Blackman	Elliot’s Mum is arrested for breaking into a giant pharmaceutical company…	BLA
The Last Boy	June Colbert	When Ben emerges from his hiding place, he is the last person on Earth…	COL
The wish list	Eoin Colfer	Meg dies perfectly balanced between good and evil… Can she save her soul?	COL
Fifteen Love	Robert Corbet	Told from two perspectives, about daily life and a burgeoning relationship	COR
Shelf Life	Robert Corbet	Short stories of people in charge of different supermarket aisles	COR
A Good Keen Man	Barry Crump	NZ yarn	CRU
Bruises: Boys don’t cry	Archie Fusillo	Hard hitting novel dealing with teen culture in schools	FUS
Touch Me	James Moloney	Boy/girl relationship	MOL
Trash	Andy Mulligan	Kids survive on a dump, until they find a purse…	MUL
Holes	Louis Sachar	Stanley Yelnats is sent to a detention centre for a crime he did not commit…	SAC
Milkweek	Jerry Spinelli	Street children innocently surviving the Holocaust. Poignant!	SPI
To Die For	Mark Svendsen	A thrilling fishing story	SVE
The Underdog	Marcus Zusak	‘Boys are like dogs – ready to bite, bark, and beg to be given a chance to show their value.’ (Back cover)	ZUC

Good Authors

Title	Author	Description	Location
2Much4u, Boyznbikes	Vince Ford	Funny, real life stories	FOR
Boy Overboard, Once…	Morris Gleitzman	Great easy to read war stories	GLE
Burnt, Groosham Grange…	Horowitz	Quick reads – Horror, creepy stories	HOR
Uncanny (and others)	Paul Jennings	Humour	JEN
Hatchet, and sequels: the Return, the River…	Gary Paulsen	Brian, stranded alone in a crash in the wilderness, survives with just a hatchet…	PAU
Rani & Sukh, Dream on	Bali Rai	Real life stories, of street kids, family, soccer…	RAI

Good Series

Series	Author	Description	Location
Cherub	Robert Muchamore	Kids are trained to spy and survive in dangerous missions	MUC
Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	TV reality game, to death…	COL
HIVE Higher Institute of Villainous Education	Mark Walden	Full of baddies, action and lashing of humour	WAL
Animorphs	K. A. Applegate	Friends are given the power to morph…	APP
My Story             Examples: Blitz (CRO) The Mine’s Afire (BAT) Sitting on the Fence (NAG)	Various authors	Based on true stories, a young person writes a diary of the time or event…
Saga of Darren Shan	Darren Shan	Plenty of horror and macabre…	SHA
World of Adventure	Gary Paulsen	Action-packed, danger, excitement in those Breezy reads	PAU/B
Alex Rider	Anthony Horowitz	Perfect spy and action hero chasing all criminals and surviving the worst situations	HOR
Tomorrow series	John Marsden	When Australian teenagers see the war coming…	MAR

Good Knowledge books

Theme	Examples	Location
Personal Life issues	Chicken soup for the teenage soul A child called It	158.1
Relationship issues	The courage to be strong	302.5
War stories	The secret agent and other spy kids War torn	355.1
Sport stories	Legs on Everest	796.52
Hunting stories	Deer were their lives	799.2
Biographies : real person’s lives	Willie Apiata, the reluctant hero	92 API
History stories	True stories of D-Day	940.54

Maori Language week !

04 July - 10 July 2011

• Participate in the whanau Quiz, to add points to your house
• Maori display in the library, with fantastic authentic items thanks to MAC maori teacher, with free leaflets
• Maori signage throughout the school

Lots of books in the library :

- Maori authors : Gavin Bishop BIS /P, Alan Duff  DUF, Patricia Grace GRA, Keri Hulme HUL, Witi Ihimaera  IHI, Kelly Ana Morey MOR, Apirana Taylor TAY

- Maori culture 306

- Maori myths 398.2 (also in Picture books area, with lots of new bi-lingual books)

- In history of New Zealand 993.1

- and many more, check the library catalogue.

And many resources on Maori language week website.

Te reo Give it a go!

Kara whiua!

Bibliography = Sources = Reference List

When you write an assignment, you use information from different sources. It is important that you acknowledge their authors and publishers, in listing them.
 
There are several standards for writing them. You can use footnotes or place the list at the conclusion of your assignment (Bibliography). There, you can list all of your sources in the order of appearance in the paper or in alphabetical order. Which ever you choose, keep the format consistent.

For a book:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title in Italic. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Example: Gleitzman, Morris. Boy Overboard. Camberwell: Penguin, 2002.

For an article:

Author Last Name, First name. “Title of Article”. Magazine Name in Italic. Date of publication. Pages.
Example: Nachtwey, James. “Mandela’s Children”. National Geographic. June 2010. p80-109.

For a webpage:

Author’s name, Title.  database name in Italic (if from a database), Date you accessed it, <url of the page>
Example: Eileen McSaveney. Historic earthquakes: Liquefaction demonstrated, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 15/06/2011,
<http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/historic-earthquakes/13/2>

See also the Information Literacy Tutorial here

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.

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.

Homework and research made easy

Scroll down the page to find on the right a “Homework & Research” links list.

It is here to help you search for your studies and I encourage you to explore it… and use it.

On AnyQuestions.co.nz , you can email to real online librarians, trained to help you work out the sort of information you need, then begin searching with you. Visit the ManyAnswers database first for hundreds of previously asked questions and links to the information found.

EPIC DATABASES  is a great initiative by New Zealand libraries to give New Zealand schools access to a worldwide range of online resources, from Britannica Encyclopedia Online to  MasterFile Premier offering articles from over 2000 major international publications and so much more…
The Username and Password must not be published in any publicly available format but are largely advertised in the school or ask the librarian.

Te Puna Web Directory is an organised listing of New Zealand and Pacific Island web sites, great to find all the good websites in a subject or a place.

 Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand offers many pathways to understanding New Zealand. It is a comprehensive guide to the country’s peoples, natural environment, history, culture, economy, institutions and society. It’s my favourite “cruise” website!

And if you still prefer Googling, then use Google Scholar which provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. Find it in the More menu.

Make the most of these great websites, your knowledge and your marks will improve amazingly!

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

Audiobooks & Multimedia section

An audiobook is a reading of a book by the author or by an actor recorded on tape or CD.

MACLIC has a collection of 50 audiobooks which you can borrow, together with the book, if you wish to follow the text. Listening to an audiobook is a bit like being read aloud, it is easy and lively. It is great when you travel. If you struggle to read, audiobooks will help you greatly and will offer you the pleasure of discovering a story.

MACLIC also offers more than 20 selected or donated documentaries DVD and videos.

You will also find a few music CDs, mainly donated by Real Groove and NZ Symphonic Orchestra.

Have a look next to the library office. Ask the librarian for the CDs.

Click here for the list of all the section’s titles: http://maclic.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/audiobooks-multimedia.pdf

New Sport Books

Check out the “Recreation” section of the library with lots of new books about Sports:

Ball games
Soccer skills for young players 796.3
Rugby skills tactics and rules 796.33
Tana Umaga : a tribute to a rugby legend 796.33
Complete encyclopedia of golf techniques 796.35
Cricket portraits : a century of New Zealand’s best 796.35

Outdoors and mountaineering
Coast to Coast: The Great New Zealand Race 796.4
Our Olympic Century 796.40
Tracking & navigation 796.5
Don’t forget your scroggin : a how-to handbook for New Zealand tramping 796.51
Tramping in the South Island : Mount Richmond Forest Park to Arthur’s Pass 796.51
Avalanche Awareness in the New Zealand Backcountry 796.52
Classic Rock Climbing in New Zealand 796.52
Complete rock climber 796.52
High-tech legs on Everest 796.52
Hillary & Norgay : to the top of Mount Everest 796.52
Danger on the mountain: scaling the World’s Highest Peaks 796.52 /P (Picture Book)
Extreme climbing 796.52 /P (Picture Book)
Camp Out! 796.54

On Wheels
Formula One 796.7
MX bikes : evolution from primitive street machines to state of the art off-road machines 796.7

Snow sports
Illustrated Guide to Snowboarding 796.9
Snowboarding basics 796.9
Snowboarding skills 796.9
New Zealand Snowboarder Trick Tips 101 796.9 /AV (in Multimedia area)
Whiteslide : snowboarding journal 796.9 /P (in Picture Book Area)

Water sports
Boating for all : navigation, boat-handling and skill-building activities 797.1
New Zealand whitewater : 125 great kayaking runs 797.1
Matt’s Kiwi fishing adventures 799.1

Other
Angels can fly : a modern clown user guide 791.3
Hip-hop dancing 793.3
Diary of a skateboarding freak 796.22 /P (in Picture Book Area)
Diary of Phar Lap 798