Congrats to Gavin Bishop whose book ATUA - Māori Gods and Heroes won the Elsie Locke award for Non-Fiction, Russel Clark award for Illustration and the top award, Margaret Mahy Book of the Year.

Atua is a stunning book with beautiful illustrations and language to tell the story of the gods of Aotearoa. And we have this book in our library! (we will be getting a second copy very soon.

Winners of the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults (NZCYA) will be announced on August 11. There’s a great line up of books and they will be available to loan from the school library in the coming months. Read about the finalists here
 
Hear authors and illustrators talk about their books at NZCYA Books Alive here and listen to virtual storytimes here

This week in the library we are celebrating nga manu of Aotearoa to support the Garden Bird Survey that is taking place across the country. To take part go to https://gardenbirdsurvey.nz/. All you need is one hour, on one from from 25th June to 3 July.
 
Looking for bird books? Here's some of our favourites

Matariki is coming very soon! 

From CCC libraries - "The Māori New Year has always been celebrated with the rise of the star cluster Matariki. It marks the beginning of the Aotearoa/Pacific New Year according to the lunar calendar. In 2022, the stars set on 23 Haratua / May, and rise 21 to 24 Piripi / June. The public holiday of Matariki is on Friday 24 June this year."

From this week CCC libraries will be running events including Matariki After School Activity Zone at local libraries (Shirley Library on June 16 and Papanui Library on June 17), Matariki Whānau Day at Turanga, and information on events happening around the city (Rehua Marae Matariki Whānau Day on June 25 and Tirama Mai in Cathedral Square)
Find out all about Matariki and your local events at https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/matariki-for-kids-2/

Last week our school again took part in NSS - National Simultaneous Storytime.

Run by the Australian Library and Information Association, NSS invites school across Aotearoa and Australia to read a selected book together on Wednesday 25 May.

​This years book was the wonderful Family Tree by Josh Pyke and Ronjoy Ghosh. We have copies of this book available for issue in the library.

Check out these great book reviews by student librarians Ann Gifford and Evie Bremner

Every few weeks we have a new display of books in the library to engage tamariki with a range of books across our library. Last month was Books That Are Movies, and this month we have Autumn Celebrations with books about Easter and Ramadan and autumn. These books are all available to take home.

Due to COVID restrictions we are needing to be creative with our library space. Last week we started outside library with books and bean bags and sunshine. These library sessions will run on Rāhina, Rātu and Rāpare at lunchtimes (unless it's rainy) right outside the library doors. Day one was a huge success!