What’s been happening in the Library?
For the second half of Term 2 our library focus was on Australian stories which frequently involve Indigenous narratives, native animals and capture the unique culture, identity and customs of Australia. These stories often paint a picture of a resilient and independent people, who rise to meet extraordinary challenges and are not afraid to embrace their individuality.
We celebrated the 101st anniversary of May Gibbs’ gumnut baby stories and went on to explore modern classics such as Mem Fox’s ‘Possum Magic’ and Marcia Vaughan’s ‘Wombat Stew’, and newer titles such as ‘Silly Galah!’ by Janeen Brian.
We also celebrated NAIDOC week’s theme of ‘Voice. Treaty. Truth.’ and ended our Australian focus by reading ‘Ernie Dances to the Digeridoo’ by Alison Lester, in which the main character Ernie moves to the outback and writes letters to his old classmates describing his new experiences and changed way of life.
At the beginning of Term 3 we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Moon landing & National Science Week’s theme ‘Destination Moon: More missions, more science’ by streaming ‘Rosie Revere, Engineer’ by Andrea Beatty and read by astronaut and flight engineer Kate Rubins.
‘Story Time From Space’ is an educational project that organises and films science demonstrations and stories being read from the international space station. You can access the story time library from home by visiting https://storytimefromspace.com.
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) promotes literary experiences for children and assures the quality, scope and vitality of Australian children's books through annual CBCA book awards.
In the lead up to the CBCA’s Book Week, library classes studied a selection of the shortlisted titles in the early childhood, picture book and Eve Pownall award categories to highlight the importance of literacy and to reinforce the themed message that ‘Reading is my Secret Power’. We hosted a pop-up library down in the playground during Book Week which was very popular and empowered students to recreationally read all the award winning books.
The early childhood category winner, ‘Tricky’s Bad Day’ by Alison Lester was read by Mr Chambers at our Book Week parade and the rest of the 2019 award winning titles can be found on CBCA’s website at https://www.cbca.org.au/winners-2019.
The Dominic College Library Team