Monthly Archives: December 2019

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The Night Before Christmas: Steel Frame by Andrew Skinner

Twas the night before Christsmas and all round the Eye

Dark forces were stirring and jockeys did die!

The mecha were cradled in their hangers with care

Not knowing that bad things would soon happen there!

Rook was a jockey also a con,

indentured by NorCol her old life was now gone!

In a near hanger there arose quite a clatter

A Juno mech was trying its confinement to shatter!

Rook and the Juno a match made in hell

Really quite lucky as time would soon tell!

The hollows were moving – dead pilots in shells

Rather like zombies, they fought and killed well!

Their infection was spreading, corporations did fall

Soon Rook’s back was pressed ‘gainst the wall

A last ditch defence against to stem the dire flood

A few plucky heroes and gallons of blood

Needed to stop dire evil’s spread

Would they survive or all end up dead?

I will not tell you, but this tome you must read:

Steel Frame by Skinner a great book indeed!

Steel Frame is written by Andrew Skinner and published by Rebellion Publishing, it is available now

Spin the d-read-l Interactive Display

You can mix parts of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas/Yule into a single interactive display enabling library users to choose a book that they may not previously have considered prior to participating in the interactive part of the display.

Using the Kwanzaa mkeka mat as the base upon which to spin the dreidel (or in this case the d-read-l) the library patron will then take the book that matches the symbol on the side of the dreidel that is facing up.


You can also match one of the four letters to different genres instead of specific books as shown below.

Once the patron has taken a book or respun the dreidel if they wanted to try something else, they can also take a Yule Reading Log to keep track of the books they will read over the holiday season.

The dreidel can be downloaded here:

US Paper size:

Download (PDF, 504KB)

UK paper size dreidel:

Download (PDF, 504KB)

To create a mkeka mat you need strips of paper or cardstock in green, black and red. These are woven together as shown below.

The Yule Reading Log can be downloaded here:

US paper size:

Download (PDF, 591KB)

UK paper size:

Download (PDF, 591KB)