"No reading at the breakfast table"

Let me bore you for a short moment with a high point of my teaching year so far. I take this Year 7 class once a fortnight for a library lesson in one of their English periods.  Still, today, they arrive late for their last lesson of the year having 'forgotten' that it was library.  They are totally off with this fairies this group.  We've certainly had a few low moments along the way. Today their class teacher insisted that they choose a book to borrow for the holidays.  They don't love reading (um, understatement).  This pronouncement was greeted with their usual moans and groans about anything resembling schoolwork. But I managed to get them to all leave the library having borrowed at least one book and many of them had borrowed more than one. I was able to talk to them for ages, recommending new books that I had read over the year that I thought they would enjoy.  All the hours I've spent reading young adult fiction that starts to sound the s...

When I was 7 my family lived in Bangalore in the south of India for three months.  Bangalore was much larger and snazzier than the small country town in the centre of India that we were used to.  I don't remember a lot about that time.  I do remember that the students in the flat above us used to play ABBA's 'Money, money, money' all day and I learnt the words for that song very well.  Ironic as I reflect on it now that they were theological students headed towards pastoring small Indian churches ...  Mind you, not much of my Indian childhood was untouched by music - it was just that this was Western music, music in a language I understood well.  I remember my brother learning to take his first steps.  But most importantly I remember reading a whole book on my own for the first time.  It was 'Wind in the Willows'. It was during those short months that I started to catch the reading bug.  There wasn't much else to do....

I forgot to give you the final costume from book week last week.  I was seriously lacking in inspiration by the end of the week and not feeling very well.  So this was my paltry effort. However, it was a fabulous week and so worth the effort of dressing up.  It showed the kids (and teachers) my warped sense of humour.  It also gave the kids a real sense of fun about the library which is a lovely outcome.  My own kids loved suggesting ideas and hearing all about how the kids at school reacted.  Good fun.

So here's what I've dressed up as for the past three days.  Obi-Wan from the People of the Library Professor Trelawny from Department of Magical Libraries Rainbow Magic Library Fairy It has been fun but to be honest I'm super tired and struggling with a horrendous cold sore.  And tomorrow I have to go in for an extra day of work to run the book week parade.  Very thankful that my own children don't have a book week parade.  That kind of extra event (especially with four children involved) would probably mean my whole face would become one giant cold sore.

Yay - another Australian Children's book week rolls around!  Always a busy time for children's librarians and school librarians.  This time last year I was entertaining over 500 school kids who came with their classes for a special library visit.  Thankfully I'm just helping out my wonderful team this year to put on some fun lunchtime activities for the kids at school. Each morning I'm visiting the junior school assembly to advertise the book week activities for the day.  Today Nanny Piggins came along to visit.  There were a lot of kids who knew  it was me but couldn't be quite sure.  Very cute. Tomorrow will bring a new book character.  Who will it be??!

   If you've been following my blog you'll know that I've started the journey of letting my hair grow out to it's natural colour (ie. grey).  I needed this book and I wasn't disappointed. It's not a heavy book but I found it so refreshing and frankly, encouraging. I'm at the 4 month point which is not looking all that great.  I often used to straighten my hair to make my hair neater for work but I just can't do it with my giant streak of grey.  And I'm resisting going the pixie look because I do think that will age me very quickly (and plus it is winter and I don't want a cold head!). Anne Kreamer has a very similar story to mine.  She started to colour her hair in her early 20's and at 49 decided that she no longer wanted to keep up her three weekly hair appointments.  She saw a picture of herself standing with her teenage daughter and a peer with natural coloured hair and thought she looked like a fraud. Anne uses her experience of...

In the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to attend a couple of conferences for work.  As a new teacher librarian (and frankly, just being me) I love all the stimulation and new ideas.  I'm particularly interested in using social networking as a way to connect with other teacher librarians and exchange new ideas. So during these conferences I've been madly tweeting and as a result I've started to 'meet' other teacher librarians who are interested in the same thing as me.  It is quite an amazing phenomenon.  Quite different to facebook that enables me to keep up with my friends, twitter is introducing me to new people in a professional capacity. I'm starting to consider if I need to rethink my blog and perhaps develop a more 'professional' blog, consolidating some more of my work related posts and leave the general musings and ramblings about life to you privileged lot!  So much I 'could' do - so many ideas.  I always come away fr...