Launching Kete Tararua

Tararua District Library is proud to announce the launch of Kete Tararua.

Kete Tararua is an online digital repository of media generated and uploaded by our community. Here you will find stories, photos, videos and audio of the land and people of Tararua. Our aim is to bring these stories together so that we can share with each other, Aotearoa New Zealand and the world.

The Kete is brought to you by the Tararua District Library, with the support of the National Library of New Zealand and the Aotearoa Peoples Network Kaharoa [APNK] and utilises open source software first developed by Katipo Communications and the Horowhenua Library Trust.

Everybody with media or stories about Tararua is more than welcome to freely contribute to the Kete by registering. If you have any questions, or wish for advice as to how to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact us via the Tararua Library Service.

As part of the Kete the APNK has supplied the library with a scanner. The scanner is currently being housed at Dannevirke Library, but will be circulated around the district libraries. Anybody may use the scanner to digitise their photos and other media.

The URL for our new Kete is: http://ketetararua.peoplesnetworknz.info/

For further information either contact your local community library or Michael Parry, Technical Services Librarian.

New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2010: Key Dates and Judges

The 2010 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards are gearing up, with the announcement of the judges for next years awards, and key dates in the process. Submissions have already closed. I will be looking forward to seeing who the shortlisted nominees will be.

New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards Judges Announced

New Zealand’s premier children’s book awards judges are on the hunt for books that inspire a lifelong love of reading.

With more than 130 nominated books to choose from, children’s literature consultant Rosemary Tisdall, writer and reviewer Trevor Agnew, and former journalist, now children’s bookshop co-owner, Ruth McIntyre, have a long summer ahead of them as they select the very best in young reads to compete as finalists in the 2010 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Mrs Tisdall, judging panel convenor for the Awards, which are now in their 14th year, says she’ll be looking for fresh ideas, characters who linger and books that leave her thinking long after she has closed it.

“We expect to see some excellent writing from New Zealand’s favourite and established authors, and we hope to discover some wonderful, new talent,” says Mrs Tisdall.

”We are looking to have our imaginations captured by books with a difference, so that the intended audience – the young people of New Zealand and beyond – will have reads that entice, teach, and therefore encourage a lifelong love of reading.”

The three judges will read works published in the 2009 year across all children’s writing genre; from picture books for the very young, chapter books for junior and senior readers and non-fiction reads for both pre-school and all school-age groups. Throughout the selection process, the judges will be on the lookout for the work that will take the coveted New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year Award.

The 2010 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards finalists will be announced on 4 March 2010, with the winners to be named at an Awards Ceremony in Auckland on 19 May 2010. Children and teenagers will also have the opportunity to vote for their favourite book, selecting from the finalist titles, for the popular Children’s Choice Award.  Voting begins online at www.nzpostbookawards.co.nz, and via voting cards available in bookshops and libraries nationwide, when the finalists are announced on 4 March 2010.

The New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards Festival, a nationwide, week-long feast of events, readings, author tours and book-inspired games, kicks off on Monday 10 May 2010.

New Zealand Post has been a sponsor of the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards for almost 15 years. Its partnership has seen the Awards flourish over the last decade. New Zealand Post’s strong support of the Awards reflects its  commitment to promoting literacy and literature throughout the country.

Working closely with Booksellers NZ, New Zealand Post and other dedicated segments of the community actively encourage New Zealand children to read and enjoy books. For those with limited access to new works, New Zealand Post also purchases and distributes books by the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards finalists by supporting the Books in Homes programme each year.

The New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards are also supported by Creative New Zealand and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd and are administered by Booksellers NZ.

Key dates

•    Thursday 4 March 2010    Finalists announced

•    Thursday 4 March 2010    Children’s Choice Award voting begins

•    Monday 10 May 2010        New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards Festival begins

•    Wednesday 19 May 2010    Winners announced

For more details of the judges see here.

More Good New Books That Should Be Reserved

A new Nicholas Rhea constable book, Constable Beats the Bounds. This series was the basis for the Heartbeat T.V. series which I found to be a poor adaption. Also a new Michael Crichton, Pirate Latitudes, where Michael writes in a new genre.  And finally a new thriller from Colleen McCullough, featuring Carmine Delmonico who first appeared in her novel On, Off called Too Many Murders.

Holiday Craft Sessions and Storytellers

Christmas is approaching fast, and so are the school holidays. Here are the craft sessions and storytellers, in date order, that will be at your local library.

Friday 18th Dec	2.00 Eketahuna Library craft session
Wednesday 23rd Dec	9.30 Dannevirke Library craft session
Wednesday 30th Dec	9.30 Dannevirke Library craft session
Tuesday 5th Jan	11.00 Woodville Library craft session
	1.00 Pahiatua Library craft session
Wednesday 6th Jan	9.30 Dannevirke Library craft session
Thursday 7th Jan	10.30 Eketahuna Library Zappo
	1.00 Pahiatua Library Zappo
	3.00 Woodville Library Zappo
Friday 8th Jan	3.00 Dannevirke Library Pete the Pirate
Monday 11th Jan	10.30 Eketahuna Library Niall de Burce
	1.00 Pahiatua Library Niall de Burce
	3.00 Dannevirke Library Niall de Burce
Tuesday 12th Jan	10.30 Dannevirke Library Zappo
	11.00 Woodville Library craft session
Wednesday 13th Jan	10.30 Woodville Library Pete the Pirate
	1.00 Pahiatua Library Pete the Pirate
	3.00 Eketahuna Library Pete the Pirate
Friday 15th Jan	3.00 Dannevirke Library Niall de Burce

I will post more details closer to the events.

Randell Cottage Writers Trust Announce 2010 Writer in Residence

Wairarapa writer Patrick Valdimar White is the New Zealand Writer in Residence at Wellington’s Randell Cottage for 2010. Pat White is a poet, essayist and artist whose work reflects his passion for the natural environment and an exploration of the way individuals relate to the land. He will use the six months in the cottage to research and write a biography of West Coast writer, teacher and fellow environmentalist Peter Hooper (1919 – 1991). Hooper wrote award-winning fiction, as well as poetry and non-fiction.

Pat White is currently writer in residence at the Robert Lord Cottage in Dunedin until the end of January 2010, and he completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters this year with a folio of essays entitled How the Land Lies. He will take up his position at Randell Cottage in April next year.

Pat White says the residency at the Randell Cottage in Thorndon is an exciting opportunity which he is delighted to accept. He says living in Thorndon will facilitate his research at the Turnbull Library and allow him easy access to papers in private hands. White says a biography of Peter Hooper’s life is long overdue. ‘The Randell Cottage residency provides impetus and endorsement of this project. It is important, nearly two decades after his death, that the contribution of this quiet self-effacing man be recognised.’

The Randell Cottage Writers Trust is pleased to announce Pat White’s appointment and to support the Peter Hooper biography. The Randell Cottage hosts a French writer for six months of the year and a New Zealand writer for six months. The current French writer in residence is Iranian exile, journalist and novelist, Fariba Hachtroudi until April 2010.

Fariba Hachtroudi is a French writer and Iranian exile born in Tehran in 1951, and the daughter of the eminent mathematician and champion of democracy Moschen Hachtroudi. She studied art and archaeology in France, moving there when she was a teenager. Despite the distance from her homeland, the Islamic revolution in Iran left her feeling bewildered. In 1981, she decided to move to Sri Lanka where she taught at Colombo University.

When Hachtroudi returned to France in 1983, she denounced Khomeini’s regime in newspaper articles. This earned her a fatwa which called for her death. In 1985, she illegally entered Iran, a journey she described in L’Exilée (published by Payot in 1985), and she became reconciled with her homeland. She found a country at war, struggling with intolerance and obscurantism. Fariba Hachtroudi wrote several novels, essays and articles “to exorcise this reality”. She led the humanitarian association MoHa, and was active within the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Since 1990, Hachtroudi has been working with the photographer Laurent Péters; they jointly won the Sicilian Cultural Report prize in 2002. Fariba Hachtroudi  works around the world as a writer, a journalist, and a lecturer. Among her recent works are Le douxième imam est une femme (published by Nouveaux Loisirs, 2009); Khomeyni express (Xenia, 2009); A mon retour d’Iran (Seuil, 2008); J’ai épousé Johnny à Notre-Dame de Sion (Seuil, 2006).

Hat tip Beatties Book Blog

Some New Books: James Patterson, Michael Jackson and Simon Cowell

There is lots of good reading coming across my desk at the moment.

Today we have the new James Patterson I, Alex Cross, which should go out well. It already has a good reserve list. Also reserved it the new biography of Michael Jackson called Legend 1958-2009, I imagine this want be the first! One not reserved, but I think should go out well, is an unauthorized biography of American Idol judge Simon Cowell, which is from the same author who penned the Jackson biography.  

Author Of The Week: November 30 – December 6

John Flanagan

John Flanagan’s bestselling Ranger’s Apprentice adventure series originally comprised twenty short stories, which John wrote to encourage his twelve-year-old son, Michael, to enjoy reading. The series has come a long way since then. Now sold to more than twenty countries, the series regularly appears on the New York Times Bestseller List and has been shortlisted in children’s book awards in Australia and overseas. John, a former television and advertising writer, lives with his wife, Leonie, in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly. He is currently writing further titles in the Ranger’s Apprentice series.

Historic Explorer Tweets From Beyond The Grave

Social media is certainly getting interesting in its new and innovative applications. The University of Cambridge is tweeting the expedition or Robert Scott 99 years after it happened. They include links to his diary. How cool is that.

Historic explorer tweets from beyond the grave. From 3news.

One of the world’s most famous explorers, Robert Falcon Scott, began a new life in cyberspace – “tweeting” about his journey from New Zealand.

Twitter messages extracted from his diary began yesterday with his departure from Port Chalmers on the hugely overladen supply vessel Terra Nova – after which the expedition was later named.

That was 99 years ago, on Saturday, November 26, 1910, and historians at Cambridge University plan daily “tweets” to attract readers to an internet blog, done on dates corresponding to the original diary entries,” The Times in London reported.

“The text comes alive to new readers, and in a short format that blog readers already understand and enjoy,” said Christopher Hughes, who developed the blog at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge.

“Matching the dates of the text with the historical events also means that those familiar with the story will get a new sense and appreciation of the endurance of the explorers, their true goals, and a deeper understanding of their self-sacrifice,’ he said.

From New Zealand, the tweets and blog will track his trek across Antarctica and his discovery on January 17 1912 that a Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to the South Pole by 33 days. Scott and his party all perished, but their records, retrieved by a search party eight months later, have made possible the re-telling of the journey in cyberspace.

“We advertised our start at 3pm., and at three minutes to that hour the Terra Nova pushed off from the jetty,” Scott wrote on his departure from Dunedin. “A great mass of people assembled. K. and I lunched with a party in the New Zealand Company’s ship Ruapehu”.

Scott wanted his British Antarctic Expedition “to reach the South Pole and to secure for the British Empire the honour of this achievement”.

He had taken on additional supplies in Dunedin, including 34 sled dogs, 19 Siberian ponies and three motorised sledges.

In the next few days, modern day readers will be able to follow the expedition’s tribulations as it was hit by a heavy storm with the crew bailing the ship with buckets in big seas after the pumps failed.

The storm cost them two ponies, a dog, and 10,160kg of coal … that was just the start of the “sheer bad luck”, according to Scott.

Some of Scott’s diary entries run to more than a thousand words, but the historians have promised they will not be reduced to “textspeak” abbreviations, which would render the last words in the diary as “4 Gds sake lk aftr r pple”.

Tararua Library holdings about Scott and his explorations can be found here.

Twilight, The Vintner’s Luck And The Lovely Bones

It seems to be the season for big screen adaption’s of popular novels.

First we have had the big release, New Moon, the second in the twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. You can watch the first movies again by borrowing from the library, or you can re-read the books. But be aware that the books hardly sit on the shelves and have a constant reserve queue.

Then Niki Caro’s version of Elizabeth Knox’ Vintner’s Luck has been premiered. That has had mixed reviews, with the author publicly stating she felt betrayed and upset.

One wonders how Alice Sebold will feel as Peter Jackson releases his version of The Lovely Bones. Early reviews have been mixed, but then I think Peter’s films often do have mixed reviews.  Below is the trailer.

The Outlook For Thursday

After another beautiful day in Dannevirke we can look forward to some rain.

The Metservice tells us that tomorrow:

Heavy rain today for Fiordland. Severe westerly gales from Hastings to Eketahuna Thursday morning.

A strong westerly flow is expected to cover the South Island today, with a front in this flow crossing Fiordland this evening. Moderate to heavy rain is expected most of the day in Fiordland, though rain should clear in the late evening. People in Fiordland should watch for rapidly rising streams and rivers today.

Tonight the westerly flow over central New Zealand is expected to strengthen. From about midnight tonight to midday Thursday westerly winds are likely to reach severe gale at times east of the North Island main ranges from Hastings south to Eketahuna. These winds are likely to be strong enough to damage trees and power lines, and make driving difficult, especially for high sided vehicles.

Meanwhile heading into the weekend:

On Friday a strong northwest flow should spread over central and southern New Zealand ahead of a front that moves onto Fiordland in the evening. Rain is expected to develop in Fiordland and southern Westland on Friday with heavy falls likely. There is also a low risk of severe northwest gales for exposed inland parts of Southland, Otago and Canterbury during Friday.

On Saturday this front should move slowly northwards over the South Island,with a period of heavy rain expected for Westland, the Canterbury Alps, Buller and the western ranges of Nelson. Rain should become widespread over the southern half of the North Island during Saturday, with a low risk of heavy rain for the Tararua Range Saturday and early Sunday morning.

The front is expected to move southwards over South Island during Sunday, and become active again on Monday, with a low risk of heavy rain for Buller and the western ranges of Nelson