Treasure trove!

Every so often we unearth undiscovered riches.

Moving a pile of disreputable old filing cabinets out of an office the other day we discovered a long-forgotten portfolio. Luckily, we're all dead nosy and had a quick look inside before throwing it away. Just as well: it's a collection of original artwork by children's artists who'd visited our libraries in the 1970s and 1980s. They'd come along, talked to the children and did a few illustrative sketches in the process and somebody had the sense to keep them safe for future use.

I'm just starting taking photographs of them (there aren't many smaller than A3 sized so in-house scanning's not an option for us). I'm putting them onto the Library Service's Flickr account in a set I'm calling "Discovered Treasures." (The ones I've put on so far haven't been digitally remastered so look a bit murky. I'll be putting "before" and "after" versions online eventually.)

Hans Christien Andersen Awards 2010

The award winning authors David Almond, and author/illustrator Michael Foreman have been nominated for the top prize in international children's literature. The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are given biennially to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature. The award is given by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) and David Almond and Michael Foreman have been nominated by the British Section.

The announcement of the winners will be made at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March 2010 and the Awards will be presented
later that year at the IBBY World Congress in Santiago de Compostela.

David Almond came to prominence with the publication of "Skellig"(1998) which became a best selling book and later a play,
an opera and most recently a film. Many of his books and short stories are aimed at older children.

• David Almond's books in our libraries

Michael Foreman has written and illustrated more than 50 of his own books, in addition to illustrating more than 150 books by other
writers.

• Michael Foreman's books in our libraries

Riveting Reads

To celebrate World Book Day on Thursday 5th March, we ran a book review competition called “Riveting Reads” for children across the borough. There were 2 age groups, up to 11 and 12 to 16, and children were asked to write about one of their favourite books, explaining why they like it and why others should read it too.

We had a fantastic response, receiving over 250 entries, from children as young as 5, right up to 16. Entry forms were available to pick up in libraries or could be downloaded from the council’s website but the best form of publicity proved to be contacting primary and secondary schools via the school’s intranet. Some schools really went for it and obviously had whole classes writing reviews.

Were you ready for the Summer Reading Challenge?

This year's Summer Reading Challenge for children — "Team Read" — ran from July to September 2008. Hundreds of children joined in, reading lots of books and collecting their bronze, silver and gold medals along the way.

• Everybody who completed the Summer Reading Challenge will get a certificate.



• Don't worry if you didn't complete the Challenge, the important thing is that you had fun and enjoyed some great stories!

We launched this year's Summer Reading Challenge with two library sessions for schools with special guest performers:

• Tom Palmer at the Wheatsheaf Library on Tuesday 17 June; and



• Craig Bradley at Junction Community Library on Wednesday 18 June.

All primary schools in the Borough were invited to send four Year 5 children to the events as "ambassadors." They enjoyed quizzes or a performance poetry session and were each given a Team Read pack to show to the rest of the school.

Penalty shoot-out at the Wheatsheaf Library

After his talk about books and reading, Tom Palmer pitted schools against each other in an exciting 'Penalty Shoot-Out Quiz.' The reward for each correct answer was the opportunity to take a penalty kick against Ray 'The Cat' Stearn.

Poetry workout at Junction Library

Craig Bradley's physical brand of performance poetry - with the emphasis on performance - got the children involved in wordplay galore (can you see what is special about the word SWIMS ?) and quite a few leeks.

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Boys Into Books

We also took the opportunity to introduce teachers to "Boys Into Books," a collection of books aimed at boys in the 5—11 age group, available for loan to primary school classes.

• Boys Into Books website

Kids' Christmas

We've updated the Christmas material on our "Kids' stuff in Rochdale Libraries" blog.

The new entries include jokes and riddles; Christmas crafts links and some information about Christmas customs.

Children's stories about Christmas

Children's Book Week

It's Children's Book Week, the annual celebration of reading for pleasure organised by Booktrust. This year's theme is the environment, which follows on nicely from the Big Wild Read and complements other activities we've been involved in such as LEAF and the BBC's Breathing Places campaign.

If you or your children don't already have a favourite book or story about the environment, or if you want to try something new, our Big Wild Read and Little Wild Read lists might give you a few ideas.

Booktime for children!

Children who started school in Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton this September will shortly receive a free illustrated book - Puffin’s popular children’s classic "Funnybones" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

The move is part of a programme known as Booktime, which is designed to promote the pleasure of reading and encourage parents and carers to read aloud with their children. In all, 700,000 pupils across the UK will take part.

This year’s Booktime book pack will contain a copy of "Funnybones" and a guidance booklet for parents and carers on the benefits of shared reading. Every primary school and library in England will receive a free resource pack to coincide with the hand-out of the Booktime book packs to pupils by their class teacher. The packs will be delivered by the library service to schools over the next few weeks.

Cabinet member for children, schools and families, Councillor Irene Davidson said:

"If we can encourage our children to foster a love of reading then we are setting them up for a bright future. Booktime is a fantastic idea and shows that books don’t have to be serious. It doesn’t matter what sort of books you read with your child – it’s the fact that you do it at all that counts."

About Booktime

Booktime was launched in October 2006 by education and publishing company Pearson in association with independent charity Booktrust.

Last year over 270,000 children in 7,500 UK schools received a Booktime book pack with the help of library services. This year, with the support of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, formerly the Department for Education and Skills), every reception child in England will receive a free book pack when they start school.

In addition, at least half of all children aged four to five in the rest of the UK will receive book packs during the academic year 2007/08.

More free resources

Resources, including activity sheets, session ideas, a short Booktime film, and a podcast of the author Allan Ahlberg will also be available to download via the Booktime website.

Booked up

Year 7 pupils across the borough are being given the chance to get their hands on free books as part of a national campaign to promote reading for pleasure.

Booked Up is a new national initiative designed to encourage 11 and 12 year olds to read more regularly.

It is being run at schools throughout the borough and is organised jointly by the Reading Agency and Booktrust with support from the Department for Education and Skills. All schools in the borough have signed up to the scheme whereby year 7 pupils will each get the chance to choose a free book from a list of twelve specially selected titles.

Libraries in the borough are also supporting Booked Up by making sure the 12 books are available so that youngsters can try all of them before picking their favourite.

Cabinet member for Children, Schools and Families, Councillor Irene Davidson said:

"This scheme builds on the success of Bookstart where very young children are provided with free books to enjoy. Anything that inspires children to read can only be a good thing and I am delighted that our schools and libraries are giving youngsters in the borough the opportunity to take advantage of this free offer. Copies of all of the 12 books are available at libraries across the borough and are well worth a look before deciding which one to go for."

More information on the scheme

For more details about the booked up scheme, please contact your nearest local library; alternatively, if your child is in year 7, please ask at his or her school.

Show-stoppers

One of the advantages of working near the Bibliographical Services Team is that I get to see a lot of the incoming stock before it goes out to our libraries. Bibs. are the very small team who do the ordering, receipt and invoicing of all our stock as well as the chasing up, sorting out and tidying up. It can be hard work for them but the up side is their bumping into the occasional book that takes their breath away.

This week's stunner has definitely been Mummy? by Maurice Sendak. It's another of his wonderful pop-up books (which, sadly, tend not to have a long shelf-life in the children's library), the story being a toddler's search for his mummy in a haunted house suitably populated by movie monsters. It is great fun. They've been bought for three of the Storytime Collections to be used in Under-5s Story Times.

Picture Book Parade

We have thousands of picture books for younger readers in our libraries. The story books include many favourite characters including Postman Pat, Kipper and Maisie. There are also lots of books telling stories in rhyme, which are great fun for reading and sharing (there's some brilliant bedtime reading amongst them!) And many of the books are introductions to the world around us, involving colours and shapes, animals and machines, and people of course!

We've listed a few of these titles in our Picture Book Parade. If you want to find more picture books, follow the links in the authors' names or the series. And you can see far, far more in any of our libraries!

Booked up

Booked Up is the new national programme which encourages Year 7 children to read for pleasure. This autumn every 11-year-old in England will be able to choose a free book from a list of 12 specially selected titles.

The Reading Agency is working in partnership with Booktrust to promote the Booked Up programme to public and school library services in England. The aim is to provide children with the opportunity to read all the Booked Up titles for free at their public library; to encourage and promote opportunities for joined-up working between public libraries, school library services and schools and to give positive library messages through the programme and its website.

To support this programme we've added more copies of the Booked Up titles to our library stock. You can check the Library Catalogue to see whether or not a copy's available at your local library.