Please click into the individual blog post, as the links are currently not visible on the library page, (formatting issue being investigated).
For those of you who haven't tried the 'Click and Collect' service for the school library out yet, here is the link to our library catalogue. Key in SUT, to search for our school. Books reserved before lunchtime, will be available for collection after school on the same day. If you don't see a book you are searching for listed, please let us know and we will consider adding it to our wishlist. Sora will continue to be available in parallel for those of you who prefer ebooks or audiobooks, plus it may offer a wider choice of titles to those on our shelves here.
And please may we remind you to return books to the Library lobby as soon as possible. There are still about 170 overdue books.
Book Spotlight!
Tomorrow is Alice's Day, so I've chosen Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There for this week's book spotlight since this year marks the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll writing this sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. We have an omnibus book in the school library featuring both titles and they are also available to borrow online from Sora.
Most of the activities for Alice's Day take place in Oxford, where Charles Dodgson - the actual name behind the pseudonym Lewis Carroll lived for most of his life, but there are some online activities including mirror writing which Alice had to read in Through the Looking Glass. I'm going to highlight this YouTube video where authors Piers Torday and Amy Wilson discuss returning to Wonderland without Alice and imagining alternative universes. They are two of the eleven authors of short stories featured in the book Return to Wonderland.
The Indie Book Awards took place last week and the winner of the children's fiction category is Tamarind & the Star of Ishta by Jasbinder Bilan. You may see other shortlisted titles and previous winners here. Last year this category was won by The Girl who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson, one of the books we have been reading at our school book club.
The winner of the non-fiction category is the autobiography My Name is Why by poet Lemn Sissay, including exploring the institutional care system and race. Upper school may enjoy this title.
I'm going to remind you weekly for the rest of this term that Toppsta are running a weekly book review competition throughout the summer with prizes for you, your class and the school. However it is limited to reviews of books featured in their pack, so I have mentioned below those which are available in the school library or via Sora or LLC. Final closing date is 27 August.
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy (SGS / Sora / LLC) Malamander by Thomas Taylor (SGS / Sora / LLC) Gargantis by Thomas Taylor (Sora / LLC) The Danger Gang by Tom Fletcher (Sora / LLC) After The War by Tom Palmer (Sora) Future Friend by David Baddiel (LLC)
What I've been reading recently!
This week I challenged myself to a genre I don't usually read, namely fantasy. So I chose to listen to the audio version of Sabriel by Garth Nix from Sora. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. This is the first title in The Old Kingdom series. We also have a copy of this book in the school library. A 25th anniversary edition of this title is due to be published next month featuring additional exclusive content. And the sixth title in the series, a prequel about Sabriel’s parents, Terciel and Elinor is planned for publication in November. What have you read recently? How about posting a review of your latest book on Reading Cloud.
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Weekly News Round Up!
A new online book club has been launched for Scouts, but the resources are available to all. The book for this month is Twitch by M. G. Leonard. Resources include a sampler of the first 3 chapters, plus and audio version of chapter 1.
The Young Poets Network have a competition to write a poem imagining natural solutions to problems caused by the climate crisis. Closes 11 July.
The Stephen Spender Trust has two competitions for translating a poem from another language to English. The first can be any poem of your choice in any language and the second is from a list of Urdu poems. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know Urdu – you can use Google Translate or ask a friend for help. Closes 16 July.
The Poetry Foundation in the US are holding a series of 4 online teen poetry lab workshops on Tuesdays and Thursday between 20 - 29 July. These are at 4pm BST for KS3 and 7.30pm BST for KS4/5. If interested, you need to register in advance.
YoungWriters have two creative writing competitions for KS3/4. Both close on 23 July.
Inkspots is a new series of free, weekly live streamed events on Saturday mornings to connect young people with their favourite authors. The session on 10 July will be a cook-along event with recipes inspired by stories of Enid Blyton.
For those of you who haven't logged into Sora yet, here is a reminder of how to borrow library ebooks via Sora. But if you are having any difficulties accessing Sora, then I will be happy to help you.
There is a link to the Sora app on the pupil page of the school website or at the top of the sidebar here on the library page. Download the Sora app or explore in browser https://soraapp.com Enter the setup code uksecondary if asked, select Sutton Grammar School and sign in with your school Google login and email password. And in the meantime, here is a Getting Started video guide or there is a PDF version on the P drive in the P:\LIBRARY\Sora folder.
Today is World UFO Day, so I have created a crossword featuring mainly UFO or alien fiction. And on Wednesday, it was World Asteroid Day which aims to raise awareness about asteroids and how we might protect the Earth from a catastrophic event. All titles can be found either in the school library or online via Sora or LLC.
Crossword created at puzzle-maker.com