New magazines at the Library

Did you know that the Library has current magazines for you to borrow? These range from Notebook, Australian Country Style, Better homes and Gardens, Gardening Australia and Good taste to Wheels, Good health, Diabetic living, Good reading, Practical Parenting and Grass roots. We also have Handmade and Australian Patchwork and Quilting. We subscribe to Wartime, The World of Antiques and Art, Choice magazine, Australian Geographic and R.M. Williams’ Outback magazine.

We have recently added two new magazines to our collections. The first of these is Choice Computers. This is a bimonthly magazine, and it covers reviews of computers, software, devices and printers, and has tips for getting the most out of your computer. The September/ October issue tests 10 budget laptops, ergonomic keyboards and mouse alternatives and has a report on online privacy.

Our other new magazine is Australasian Dirt Bike. The October issue has a review of the new Yamaha YZ250F, the Husqvarna TE 610I.E., and the Suzuki Kingquad 500 4x4 . It also has a report on the National Motocross championships and on the 2009 Australasian Safari.
We hope you enjoy whatever you are reading this week.

Stress less over homework

Did you know that if you have a Gilgandra library card, you can log in to a free tutoring service online? The service is called “yourtutor” and you find it by going to the Library catalogue website (http://nwls.spydus.com). Scroll down the page and click on the link (“click here”) to access the program, using your library membership card number to login.

The tutoring is for year 4-12 students and is available from Monday to Friday, from 4pm-8pm. You can select from a range of subjects, so that you get a tutor who has expertise in the area you are interested in. The idea is that you would login with a specific question you wanted to ask. It might be a maths problem you are having trouble with, or an essay topic you are having difficulty researching. Or perhaps you have nutted out a plan for your essay and want to know if you are on the right track. “Your tutor” enables you to communicate with the tutor via instant messaging, and has an interactive whiteboard so you can draw a geometry question on the screen to show the tutor what your problem is. There is also a file sharing capability, so you can send your rough draft through to the tutor and receive immediate feedback. And finally, “yourtutor” enables the tutor to share websites with you through a co-browser, if you are having difficulty researching your topic.

Tutors are certified teachers, professional tutors, post graduates and advanced undergraduates from Australian universities. Gilgandra Shire Library has taken a 12 month subscription to this service, which is provided by an Australian-owned company called Tutoring Australasia. We have had the subscription for just over a month, and have received a report from the company on the last month’s usage. At the end of each session, students are asked if they were satisfied with the service, and also to give a comment. This month, a year 11 student commented that “It was excellent. They really helped me a lot and gave me ideas on how to write creatively.” So why not give it a go and maybe cut some of the stress out of homework time.

Books Alive- "Esme Lennox" is a wonderful book

“The vanishing act of Esme Lennox” by Maggie O’Farrell is one of the books listed in this year’s guide “50 books you can’t put down”. The main character, Esme, has an unhappy childhood in colonial India, and later finds herself a troubled woman in 1930’s Edinburgh. Unable to fit into society, she is betrayed by her sister and edited out of the family history for over sixty years. Then, a young woman, Iris, discovers a great-aunt she never knew she had; Esme.

This is what author, Maggie O’Farrell, had to say on her website when asked what inspired her to write this novel: “It is a novel I’ve wanted to write for a long time. I first had the idea – of a woman who is incarcerated in an asylum for a lifetime – fifteen years ago. I tried to write it then, as my first novel, but it didn’t work and I ended up abandoning it to write After You’d Gone instead. This was in the mid nineties, after Thatcher’s Care in the Community Act, when psychiatric hospitals were being closed down and patients turfed out. There were a lot of stories flying around at that time of people, particularly women, like Esme who had been put away for reasons of immorality and left to rot. A friend told me about his grandmother’s cousin, who had just died in an asylum, having been put there in her early twenties for “eloping with a legal clerk”. The idea never went away and I gradually amassed more and more stories and examples of girls who had been committed in the early Twentieth century for little more that being disobedient or recalcitrant. When you start to dig a little deeper, into case notes and medical reports, the findings are terrifying. I’ve always been interested in the idea of what happens to the same type of woman – uncompromising, unconventional, refusing to fit into the domestic role society has set out for her – at different times in history. Centuries ago, she might have been condemned as a witch but as recently as sixty years ago she might have been deemed insane and committed to an asylum.” (http://www.maggieofarrell.com/bio2.html) Sounds like an interesting premise for a book, doesn’t it?

Well, I was intrigued when I read this, and I took the book home at the first opportunity. It thoroughly lived up to my expectations. It was well written, and I couldn't wait to get back to reading it. Between sections of narrative, the thoughts of one character seague into those of another, but I never found it confusing. I found the characters believable and moving and I have since recommended it to several friends. Thank you for a wonderful book, Maggie O'Farrell.

More Books Alive!

One of the books chosen for this year’s “Books Alive 50 books you can’t put down” is “The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas. This book begins at a suburban barbecue, where a man slaps a misbehaving child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event. It divides this group of friends, with some supporting the outraged parents of the slapped child, and others supporting the man.

“The Slap” is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue, with each given a chapter. How they each react to the incident draws the inherent conflict between their various personalities and beliefs to the surface. The characters are not all likeable, but it is fascinating to watch the story unfold, as the incident causes them to question how their own families work and what their beliefs are. I found this book very hard to put down, though I couldn’t easily identify why. It is set in Melbourne middle class suburbia, with many of the main characters being the children of post war migrants from various countries. There are age and cultural differences between the friends and yawning gaps between them in their core beliefs, which becomes divisive for the first time when they react so differently to the slap. I think the source of my fascination with this book was that the characters are so vividly drawn that it felt as though I was taking a walk in their shoes.

Another of the “50 books” is “The true story of Butterfish” by Nick Earls. It is the story of Curtis Holland, keyboard player in the famous band, Butterfish. Butterfish has imploded, and now Curtis is in his new Brisbane home, with a studio, set up to produce other people’s music. He plans to be reclusive, to avoid recognition, but he finds his single neighbour and her two teenage children have other ideas. He becomes involved, but then the former lead singer of Butterfish turns up, glamorous and fascinating.

This book was reviewed by Thornton McCamish on July 20 on the website www.watoday.com.au. He said “Earls' characters are superb, and the conversations in which they make furtive, toe-stubbing attempts to connect with each another are hilariously rich in the unsaid and the unintended. And while Curtis' low-key style can sometimes be unaffected to the point of homespun, the prose is also capable of artful shades of feeling, especially in the passages about the missing parents who haunt this story, and in some memorable descriptions of songs and singers, and the reasons we need music in the first place.”
Happy reading!

50 books you can't put down

Each year, “Books Alive” produces a handy guide booklet: “50 books you can’t put down”. It is a promotion of books and reading, and during the month of September, participating bookshops give away a specially commissioned book to anyone who buys one of the 50 books in the guide. The 50 books chosen for the guide are always an interesting mix of humour, crime, biography, history, and some children’s books. The books selected for this year’s “50 books you can’t put down” are as varied as ever; here is a taste of two of them.

The first is “How to break your own heart” by Maggie Alderson. In Australia, we probably know Maggie best from the column she has written for ten years in the Sydney Morning Herald’s “Good Weekend” magazine. She has been an award winning magazine editor and now lives in the UK. On her webpage she says that “How to break your own heart” is “the story of Amelia who is happily married to handsome, funny, loving Ed. So if she’s happy, you might ask, what’s the story? Well, Ed’s a daydream Mr Right on paper, but there’s just one rather major problem. He doesn’t want to have a baby. With her 37th birthday looming, Amelia is beginning to panic and when her dashing teenage sweetheart, Joseph, suddenly reappears in her life, and her best friend, Kiki, starts making mischief- things get very complicated, very quickly.” Maggie Alderson says this is a story close to her heart, because she was the woman “who found out at the age of 36 that your fertility goes down in a black ski run gradient at 37.”

Interestingly, this book was published in Australia 8 months before it was published in the UK; because her publishers identify Maggie Alderson as a “summer author”. In her blog, Alderson says she is very happy with this tag “because I like to think of my books as something you would reach for when you have a bit of time for yourself – such as stretching out on a pool side lounger, or settling into a flight to somewhere sandy and salty.” Sounds good to me!

On an utterly different note, “1788; the brutal truth of the first fleet” by David Hill was also selected for inclusion in the “50 books”. This book was reviewed by Cassandra Prybus on October 1, 2008 in “The Australian” newspaper (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24392857-25132,00.html). Prybus wrote that histories of the First Fleet have usually started in England and then jumped to Port Jackson, “as if the eight months in between were some limbo where history and life experience was suspended until the settlers touched terra firma once more”.

Prybus contrasted this to works by historians about the colonisation of America, and about the slave trade, where the voyage, with all its hardships and deprivations, is seen as a critical part of the formation of the character of the travellers, whether colonists or slaves. Prybus hoped that “1788” would remedy this, but she was very disappointed. She was scathing in her review of this book; and contrasted it with “The Commonwealth of Thieves” by Tom Keneally (2005): “as a foundation narrative for the popular market, Keneally's is as good as you would want”. Prybus also stated: “Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore (1987) is a masterpiece, while Sian Rees's The Floating Brothel (2001) comes close to being the kind of book on early Australia that I want to read. Good popular history, like that of Hughes and Rees (both initiated overseas), is informed by the best scholarship and pushes readers beyond what they learned in school.” Ouch!

The Library has all of these books, as well as “1788”. Whether “1788” deserved to be included in this year’s “50 books” guide will make for some interesting discussion in the future! The guide is available from the Library or at www.booksalive.com.

Free help from tutors for year 4-12 students

Gilgandra school students can now receive free tutoring help online at their library or home, through an innovative new service just introduced by the Library. The service, called “yourtutor“, creates an online classroom where students are connected to qualified tutors for one- to - one help with homework, assignments, exam preparation and study questions.

English, Maths and Science subjects are included and the service is available 4pm-8pm, Monday to Friday from either library or home computers. Help is immediate, professional and secure and it’s free to library members. Students in Years 4-12, simply log on to the library’s website (http://nwls.spydus.com/), scroll down and click on the link to access the program, using their library membership card number to login.

Tutors are certified teachers, professional tutors, post graduates and advanced undergraduates from Australian universities. They can review specific homework and assignment questions with students on line, using features like controlled chat, an interactive white board and shared web browsing. This service has a lot of advantages for students. It is immediate: when they login, within moments they are in a one to one, instant messaging conversation with a tutor. It’s anonymous: students have said that it’s easy and comfortable to ask questions online, even if they think it’s something they should already know. It’s interactive: co-browsing the internet, file sharing and the interactive whiteboard allow students and the tutor to work their way through a specific question.

Students should use yourtutor if they get stuck on a maths question, want feedback on an essay before they hand it in, would like a tutor to help with a chemistry equation, or need help finding resources and researching a topic. Gilgandra Shire Library has taken a 12 month subscription to this service, which is provided by an Australian-owned company called Tutoring Australasia. We would like to know whether you think this service is worthwhile; please give it a go and tell us what you think.

Book of the Year- some of the Children's Book Council of Australia prizewinners

The winners of the Children’s Book Council of Australia prizes were announced last Friday; just in time for Book Week; this week. The Library has most of the shortlisted and prize winning books, so please call in and borrow some of these great Australian books!

The winner of Older Reader’s Book of the Year was “Tales from outer suburbia” by Shaun Tan. Teacher Fran Knight reviewed this book on the Allen and Unwin website “A story and picture book for adults and children alike, Shaun Tan draws a mirror to the face of Australia, with lonely people, houses where constant bickering between parents causes the boy to sleep on the lawn, communities where people use the missiles in their yards for practical purposes and an exchange student who lives in a house where little exchange takes place. Each story provokes thought about how we live and entreats the reader to give more serious consideration to our lives and the lives of those around us”.

The winner of the Younger Readers Book of the Year was “Perry Angel’s suitcase” by Glenda Millard, illustrated by Stephen Michael King. This the third book in the Kingdom of Silk series, which began with “The naming of Tishkin Silk”. In the story, Perry arrives at the Kingdom of Silk one day on the 10.30 express, carrying only a small and shabby suitcase embossed with five golden letters. What do those letters mean? And why won t Perry let go of his case? This book has been described on the Allen and Unwin website as a gentle and moving story about finding your place in the world.

The prize for Early Childhood Book of the Year was won by Bob Graham, with his delightful book “How to heal a broken wing”. A pigeon flies into a skyscraper window, and in the busy grey city only one little child, with red jacket and golden hair, notices. He and his mother wrap the pigeon carefully in her scarf and carry it home, where with ‘rest, time and a little hope’ slowly, it heals. Bookseller + Publisher wrote about this book that "Children from as young as three will empathise with Will, while older children and adults can sharpen their visual literacy skills, noting the filmic techniques that inform and move readers of this perfectly designed and heart-warming book" (as cited by Walker Books website).

Picture Book of the Year was won by Kylie Dunstan, with “Collecting Colour” This is the story of best friends Rose and Olive, and the day they spend in the bush in the Top End, collecting pandanus leaves and “colour”; roots and berries to dye the pandanus. Later they see how the leaves are woven into beautiful baskets, and make their own mats. The author worked as an Arts project officer at a community in the Northern Territory. This book is illustrated in vibrant colour and is a pleasure to hold and read.

Happy Book Week!