HCC Midwinter Writing Competition

Write a mini-saga on a subject of your choice.

What is a mini-saga*? A mini-saga is a story told in exactly 50 words – no more, no less. Hand your mini-saga to Mrs Duane or Ms Stanbridge by 29 January 2010. Prizes will be awarded for the best entries.

An example of a mini-saga:
Fear pulsated down my spine as I crossed the eerie graveyard. Footsteps gained on my shadow. Turning the corner, there he was, the man that had ruined my entire life. “Dinner,” Jess’s mum shouted. “Okay, I’m coming!” she replied, before placing her book down on the bed and running downstairs. (With thanks to Spinebreakers.)

*Mini-sagas were invented by the science fiction writer, Brian Aldiss, while he was working on a massive, 3 volume novel. As an exercise, he tried to encapsulate all the essential elements of a story in exactly 50 words.

Carnegie Medal 2010

See the nominations for the 2010 Carnegie Medal here.

Several of these titles are already in HCC library and some are already strong favourites of our readers (including Rachel Ward's Numbers). There are two nominations for Marcus Sedgwick.

The shortlist will be announced on Friday 23 April 2010 - we'll be shadowing again at HCC. What are the titles you'd like to see on the shortlist? Any predictions for the overall winner?

Neil Gaiman wins the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2009

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is this year's winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize.

The Graveyard Book tells the story of Nobody ‘Bod’ Owens, a child abandoned in a graveyard after the vicious murder of his parents and sister by The Man Jack. Raised and educated by the ghosts that live there, Bod encounters terrible and unexpected menaces in the horror of the pit of the Sleer and the city of Ghouls. It is in the land of the living that the real danger lies as The Man Jack is determined to find Bod and finish him off.

Previous winners include Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Rachel Ward visits HCC!

A wonderful visit from Rachel Ward last week. The Battle of the Books team reprised their presentation of Numbers before we heard a fascinating talk by Rachel. Numbers is Rachel's first published book and has just been longlisted for the 2010 Carnegie Medal. It is also in this year's gr8 txts selection. The sequel, Numbers 2: The Chaos will be published in June 2010.

Numbers

Booked Up books have arrived!

All the Booked Up books have now arrived and most have been given out to Year 7 student in their English classes. All the students were delighted to receive their books.

An enjoyable shopping trip

A very enjoyable trip to the Lion & Unicorn bookshop, Richmond this afternoon with this year's Battle of the Books team and Mr Scruby to buy books using the generous donation we received. The students made a lovely selection for the library and were pleased to be given some uncorrected proof copies to take home. Many thanks to Tony and the staff at Lion & Unicorn for their help.

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

Mal Peet has been awarded the 2009 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for Exposure - a modern reworking of Othello with a South American football star as the main character.

Exposure

Booked Up update

The Booked Up order was sent off successfully late this afternoon - this is quite an achievement as we have been suffering major computer problems over the last few days. Now all Year 7 have to do is wait for the books to arrive - look out for those purple boxes!

This year's overall favourite is Blood Hunters by Steve Voake.

Getting the order sent on time means that we can claim a free set of books: this year, six titles by Cathy Cassidy.

Booktrust Teenage Prize 2009

The shortlist for the Booktrust Teenage Prize was announced today. The six books are: Auslander by Paul Dowswell, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray, The Ant Colony by Jenny Valentine, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant and The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness.

The Booktrust Teenage Prize was launched in 2003 to recognise and celebrate the best contemporary writing for teenagers. Last year's prize went to Patrick Ness for his first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Students are invited to post their reviews of the shortlisted books on the groupthing website

Year 8 students become literary critics

Mrs Taylor's English class are going to be reviewing the books on the shortlist for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and have the chance of winning the opportunity of going to the award ceremony in November! Judges this year include Michael Rosen, Bill Bailey, Mini Grey and Andy Stanton.

Booked Up 09 is here!

Hurray! Today the Booked Up magazines arrived and we have a set of this year's books for Year 7 to look at in the library. The Booked Up site has all the details and a video of the authors talking about their books. Year 7 will be able to start choosing this week.

Thank you...

... to Cathy Trevelyan and family for their donation of some great books for the library.

Watch 'Framed' on Bank Holiday Monday

Frank Cottrell Boyce's Framed is coming to BBC1 on Monday 31 August at 8.30pm.

Framed was inspired by the evacuation of the paintings from the National Gallery to the safety of a Welsh mine during the Second World War.

Framed was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2006. Frank Cottrell Boyce's Millions, which won the Carnegie Medal in 2005, was also made into a successful film.

Click here for more details.

Chaos Walking : Book Three - The Title Revealed...

...by Patrick Ness on his website today:

"The wait is over! Here it is at last, the title that follows The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer to finish off the Chaos Walking trilogy with a bang.

On page 430 of The Knife of Never Letting Go, Todd has a flash of memory: “War makes monsters of men, I hear Ben saying.” On page 102 of The Ask and the Answer, Viola remembers it, too: “War makes monsters of men, I say, quoting Ben...” And in the final volume, they’ve come to it at last. They’re going to find out for themselves how true that is, whether they want to or not. So I hereby give to you today, the title of the final volume of the Chaos Walking trilogy:

Monsters of Men. Out May 2010 in the UK."

Can you beat this?

An avid reader in south west Scotland is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th book from her local libraries.

Louise Brown, 91, from Stranraer, took her first book on loan from Castle Douglas library in 1946. Since then she has borrowed at least six books every week throughout each year and has recently increased that to about 12 volumes every seven days. Library staff said they were amazed by the achievement, particularly since Mrs Brown has never had an overdue fine. The Dumfries and Galloway pensioner first became a member at Castle Douglas library and has particularly fond memories of the staff there.

'Remarkable lady'

She began using Stranraer Library in October 2002 when she moved there to live with her daughter. Staff at the library described Mrs Brown as a "remarkable lady" and said they looked forward to her weekly visits. They also believe that her book borrowing figures could constitute a Scottish record. They have asked any library with a more prolific reader to contact them. Janice Goldie, the cultural services manager for the region, said they had not heard of anyone who could match her. She said: "We are fascinated to know if Mrs Brown's record can be beaten. There may be other people out there who can beat them and we would love them to get in touch. We very much want Dumfries and Galloway to be celebrated as a reading region."

Story from BBC News

Booked Up 09 is coming

Check out the free books on offer for Year 7 from this year's Booked Up scheme here.

All new Year 7s will be able to make their choices in September. The selection gets better each year.

Also coming in September is the shortlist announcement for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. Here is the longlist.

New Alex Rider book!

Anthony Horowitz's eighth Alex Rider book, Crocodile Tears, is due out on November 12th! Read here for more information.

Happy Birthday

HCC Library is one today!

Battle of the Books 2009

Yesterday was Battle of the Books at HCC - six Richmond secondary schools competing. A fantastic day was had by all. The HCC team presentation was on Rachel Ward's Numbers which is becoming a real word-of-mouth success in the library. See a full report on the HCC website.

Bog Child wins the Carnegie Medal

Siobhan Dowd has become the first posthumous winner of the Carnegie Medal for Bog Child, the story of a teenage boy who finds a child's body in an Irish bog. Siobhan Dowd died in August 2007, three months after completing Bog Child.

See David Fickling's acceptance speech on behalf of Siobhan Dowd.

The HCC shadowing group, and their counterparts from Hampton and LEH, voted The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness as their favourite. See our Carnegie homepage.

Patrick Ness has commented on his blog: 'So I didn't win the Carnegie Medal, but really Bog Child is a really good book by a really, really wonderful writer who died way too soon. No complaints from me. Especially as it seems I've been voted favourite book by the groups on the Shadowing Scheme (this is 3800 different young reading groups in schools and libraries, so way cool to be picked by them).

New Children's Laureate

Anthony Browne has been named as the new Children's Laureate. He is an author and illustrator and succeeds poet, Michael Rosen. Read more here. Listen to Anthony Browne here.

Calling manga fans!

Richmond Libraries are starting a Manga Group at Teddington Library.

Love Manga, Anime or Graphic Novels? Join our monthly 11-15’s manga group: come along to our first meeting on Wednesday 24 June, 6:30 - 7:30pm.

To join, please contact staff at: Teddington Library, call 020 8977 1284 or email: yps@richmond.gov.uk

Hay Festival podcast

Click this link to hear a podcast from the Hay Festival which includes an interview with Patrick Ness.

A gift of books - some thanks

Many thanks to Mrs Wade's parents for giving us five boxes of great books - history, art, cookery, gardening, fashion, biography, fiction - a fantastic collection for the library.

First female Poet Laureate

Carol Ann Duffy has been named as the new Poet Laureate, the first woman to be appointed in the 341-year history of the post. She succeeds Andrew Motion who has been Poet Laureate since 1999.

Some of her poems are taught for GCSE English.

She has said she will donate her yearly honorarium for the new post to the Poetry Society to fund a prize for the best collection of the year.

The job also comes with a payment of a "butt of sack" or, in modern terms, about 600 bottles of sherry.

Read more about Carol Ann Duffy.

Listen to interview.

Carnegie Shortlist announced

GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO…

CILIP Carnegie shortlist brings together seven outstanding ‘rites of passage’ novel

“What really stands out in all the novels on our shortlist is the capacity of each author, in their very different ways to empathise with young people, and really get inside their heads”, comments Joy Court, Chair of the 2009 Judging Panel. “Each book lays bare the thorny process of turning from child to adult and the moral dilemmas, ambivalent relationships and confusing feelings that characterise the business of growing up. These are characters young readers will identify with and books that really do have the power to influence young lives.”

Carnegie Shadowing at HCC

We're counting down to Friday 24 April when the shortlist for this year's Carnegie Medal will be announced.

The first meeting of the shadowing group will take place on Wednesday 22 April at 3pm in HCC Library. Come along if you're interested in reading the shortlisted books, writing reviews and joining in a stimulating debate with others.

Do you have any guilty secrets?

Interesting article here. 65% admit to lying about the books they have read. Which book do you lie about?

Bookseller Book Video Awards 2009

Your chance to vote for the best videos based on three books - My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson, Double Cross by Malorie Blackman and Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud.
Bookseller Book Video Awards 2009

Snow quiz: drift through your literary knowledge

Snow quiz: drift through your literary knowledge | Books | guardian.co.uk

When did it last snow like this in London?

HCC is closed today - a fine opportunity to catch up on your reading!

1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list

The Guardian has produced a list of 1000 novels everyone must read.

How many of these have you read?

Darwin Bicentenary

Interesting review of some books on Charles Darwin here.

Follow the voyage of The Beagle here.

Libraries are 'sanctuaries for learning' - Barack Obama

In 2005 Barack Obama spoke to the American Librarian Association on 'Literacy and Education in a 21st Century Economy'. The speech is well worth reading - the American experience mirrors our own. Obama says, "the library has always been a window to a larger world.... libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information."

Read the complete speech here.

Costa Children's Book Award

Just Henry by Michelle Magorian has today won the Costa children's book award.

Find out more

Short Story Competition

Don't forget the library's very own short story competition. All you have to do is write a story in exactly 366 words. Prizes awarded for the best entries. Closing date 30 January.