Monthly Archives: December 2018

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The Night Before Christmas: Lark by Anthony McGowan

December 24, 2018 1:33 pm ,

‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
Out in his sett the old badger was resting
In the eves of my house a rook was still nesting.
The pike it was swimming in the depths of the lake
Just waiting for prey to make a mistake!
On my nightstand lay McGowan’s book Lark
The perfect read for bed after dark!

The final story about Kenny & Nicky,
Two brothers who have come through situations quite sticky!
The strength of the books lies in the love that they had
One for the other, their dog and their dad!
But in this dark tale the stakes are so high
Will the brothers both live, or will one of them die…
Out on the moors with the temperature dropping,
with a bitter, cold wind and snow that’s not stopping?

I read this story with my heart in my throat
My tea grew ice cold but I did not know it!
The reading was fretful, I wanted to stop!
When out in the hall there came a soft ‘pop’
My daughter was roaming so I took a break
and put her to bed, my head I did shake.

Oh! Lark I did finish and so went to bed
With thoughts of the brothers and the North, in my head

The Truth of All Things sequence is a masterpiece! I have covered Tony’s work quite a bit over the years and do not want to rehash what I have already said. You can read my opinions on the first three books here.

I will just say that I stand by my words and to my mind Lark is a fitting coda to the story and slots in very well with my theory of the books being based on the elements.

Thank you Tony! It has been an honour and a pleasure following and sharing in Nicky and Kenny’s exploits over the years!

Lark is a must-read book for 2019 – along with Brock, Pike and Rook!

All the books are written by Anthony McGowan and published by Barrington Stoke.

Lark will be released in January 2019

Posted in: Books

Jason Reynolds – event review

December 19, 2018 2:53 pm ,

I wasn’t able to attend the event that Waterstones Piccadilly hosted on Friday 30th November but I told a colleague about it, having recommended his books to her, and she jumped at the chance to go, saying “I couldn’t get Michelle Obama tickets but this will do!”. I asked her if she’d write a few words about the event for us (thankyou Tracey!)

Attending this author event was very different to most I have been to because Jason Reynolds didn’t actually read from his book For Every One, but had a conversation with the audience and Mark Maciver who chaired the talk. He spoke about his journey as a writer, his mother, travelling around England and meeting a few unicorns (basically Black British people who were young and wrote poetry). It was very clear that he was soaking up cultures, conversations and experiences on his book tour and he was definitely reflecting on how important it is to be truthful. A very poignant moment was when he described how he didn’t enjoy classic literature and his mother had said who actually made that a classic? This led onto him to simply saying that if you don’t see yourself and your life reflected in literature how can you engage with something so different to your life. Rap music was so important to him as a young man and that was never part of the literary narrative of any character in a book, so to take an interest in Shakespeare was not on the agenda. Once you engage with stories that you get, then you are open to new experiences and able to appreciate what others may see. His honesty about not knowing things that authors are supposed to know, such as what are semi-colons for – which obviously made the audience laugh – was truly refreshing. For Every One is probably the best book by Jason Reynolds to read first if you are not familiar with his work, as it is beautiful, poetic, accessible, and very short.


His other title recently published in the UK, Long Way Down, is on the current nominations list for both the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards – Carnegie for his writing and the Kate Greenaway for the wonderfully evocative illustrations by Chris Priestly. Knights Of will be publishing his 4 book middle grade series, The Run, next year.

Posted in: Events, Reflecting Realities, Uncategorized

Black History Month Ideas: African American Spies, from the Revolution to the CIA

December 18, 2018 11:20 pm ,

The CIA has an incredibly interesting article available on their site titled Black Dispatches: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence During the Civil War

It provides details about African-American spies and the work they did to provide intelligence for the Union.

Spies ranged from Harriet Tubman, better known for her work in helping escaped slaves find their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad to William A. Jackson – a slave in the Confederacy’s presidential household who provided invaluable information to his northern contacts. You can find out about more Civil War spies here.

Still with the CIA, they have a list of operatives who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2014-featured-story-archive/remembering-cias-african-american-heroes.html

Other agents include James Armistead  a slave of William Armistead in New Kent County, Virginia, he volunteered to spy for the Continental army commander General Lafayette. James became a servant to British general Lord Cornwallis, who asked him to spy on the Americans! As a double agent, James gave unimportant information to Cornwallis, while keeping Lafayette informed about British troop strength and positions. James Armistead remained enslaved after the war. In 1784, Lafayette wrote to theVirginia General Assembly, describing his valuable service and asking that he be freed. In 1786, he was freed—and from then on, he called himself James Lafayette.

Born into extreme poverty in St Louis Missouri Josephine Baker went on to become a vaudeville star, was recruited into an all black dance troupe and went to Paris. In 1940 she became a spy for the French Resistance, while she picked up intelligence at parties, her fellow secret agent Jacques Abtey, masquerading as her assistant, recorded the information in invisible ink on her sheet music.

On her return to the USA she fought segregation across the states and ended up on an FBI watch list.

Activity Idea:

There are several methods one can use to make invisible ink:

  • Lemon juice & water – made visible by heating paper
  • Baking soda in water – made visible with dark fruit juice concentrate
  • Write with white crayon – made visible paint over with watercolors

    Once you have decided which technique to use encourage attendees to choose a spy, or more than one if they are feeling adventurous and create an invisible drawing of the agent or write a secret message to a friend hidden in another message.

    They could even create a cipher and make an invisible, encoded message.

    • Posted in: Activities, Uncategorized

    Black History Month Ideas: The Tuskegee Airmen

    December 18, 2018 9:08 pm ,

    The Tuskegee Airmen were African American pilots who fought in World War 2. They flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their impressive performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces.

    This event will give participants the opportunity to learn about the airmen and create and decorate a paper model Mustang with the colors the 332nd Fighter Group used on their aeroplanes.

    The Kid Scraps Mustang model is available here 

    The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has an online game that allows you to act as a flight leader for the Tuskegee Airmen, you can play the game here: http://pioneersofflight.si.edu/content/tuskegee-airmen-flight-leader

    Books about the Tuskegee Airmen

  • Who were the Tuskegee Airmen? By Sherri L. Smith
  • The Tuskegee Airmen by Sarah E. De Capua.
  • You can Fly: the Tuskegee Airmen by Carole Boston Weatherford
  • Red Tail captured, Red Tail free : memoirs of a Tuskegee airman and POW by Alexander Jefferson
  • The Red Tails : World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen by Steven L. Jones
  • Tuskegee Airman : the biography of Charles E. McGee : Air Force fighter combat record holder by Charlene E. McGee Smith 
  • Tales of Famous Heroes by Peter and Connie Roop
  • Black Wings : courageous stories of African Americans in aviation and space history by Von Hardesty
  • Black Knights: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen by Thomas Reilly & Lynn M. Homan
  • Dreaming Eagles by Garth Ennis & Simon Coleby (graphic novel / fiction)

    • DVDs

  • The Tuskegee Airmen
  • Red Tails
  • The Tuskegee Airmen

    • Posted in: Activities, Uncategorized

    Christmas Books on Television Times December 2018

    December 13, 2018 5:21 pm ,

    Helen Smith the Learning Resources Manager at Eckington School has produced her annual literary television guide for December

    Download (PDF, 3.91MB)

    Posted in: News, Uncategorized

    Poster: Books are Lit

    December 11, 2018 7:48 pm ,
    Posted in: Posters

    British Museum Manga マンガ Exhibition

    December 10, 2018 3:58 pm ,

    In association with The National Art Center, Tokyo and the Organisation for the Promotion of Manga and Anime; The British Museum is putting on the LARGEST display of Manga to ever take place outside of Japan!

    I have been a huge fan of manga (and anime) for years and am also a big fan of the British Museum – they have done some of my favourite exhibitions over the years and the Manga Exhibition looks like it will be amazing!

    It is typical that they would wait until I left the country, but even though I will be unable to go – you should really take the time to book tickets and immerse yourself in one of Japan’s best-known exports! 

    The exhibit will run from 23rd May until 26th August and will introduce the historical roots of manga, including woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), and their influence on anime, games and cosplay.

    Among the original manga pieces to be put on display is the late Osamu Tezuka’s Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, Moto Hagio’s Po no Ichizoku (The Poe Clan) and Akiko Higashimura’s Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish).

    For more details follow this link:  https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/manga.aspx

    Posted in: Manga, Uncategorized

    Crafty Scotsman Activity

    December 7, 2018 9:32 pm ,

    An activity for Burns Night or just any time you would like to colour in and dress up a burly Scotsman in a range of exciting outfts.

    Download (PDF, 3.49MB)

    Posted in: Activities

    Library Planet

    December 6, 2018 5:03 pm ,

    Founded and edited by Christian Lauersen of Roskilde Libraries and Marie Engberg Eiriksson of Gladsaxe Libraries, Denmark; Library Planet is like a crowdsourced Lonely Planet for libraries of the world, meant to inspire library travelers to open the awesome book that is our world of libraries, cities and countries.

    Visit Library Planet here: Library Planet

    If you want to share your library or libraries you have loved then you can contribute to Library Planet here: https://libraryplanet.net/contribute/

    Posted in: Libraries, News

    BBC One Watership Down Trailer

    December 6, 2018 4:10 pm ,

    Posted in: video