Monthly Archives: August 2013

Friday 30th August – The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones review by EN

‘The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones’  was very similar to the book. Robert Sheehan, cast as Simon who was Clary’s best friend, acted very well. The film was really humourous. Jamie Campbell Bower and Lily Collins were a great lead duo, and the film was great.

Thursday 29th August – The Book of Lost Things, reviewed by ruby slippers

Book of Lost ThingsI was told that I would love this book and that I really should read it by two different people, but the reason I actually did pick it up (eventually) was because the first line on the back cover was ‘Everything you can imagine is real.’ I can’t resist a challenge.

This is a dark and scary story set in a fairy tale world that David reaches through a hole in the garden wall – unfortunately, like so many fairy tales, there is no way back. He is met by the Wood-Cutter and pursued by wolves… but this is no innocent Babes-in-the-Wood story; there is no guarantee that Good will triumph and that Evil will be punished and the heroes and heroines are not always who you think they are – I will never think of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty in the same way again.

I really enjoyed The Book of Lost Things, and the people who recommended it to me were right – this kind of twisted fairy tale is my kind of book!

 Everything you can imagine is real

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own — populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.

Wednesday 28th August – Leakycon

LCNot too long ago in London, a few high school pupils were at Leakycon, a Harry Potter convention. Hannah (S4) and Clare (S3) enjoyed watching Harry and the Potters on stage and meeting the likes of Hank Green and Benedict Clarke. They discovered wizard rock bands such as the Blibbering Humdingers, the Whomping Willows and Siriusly Hazza P. They made new friends with people from all over the country who also came to Leakycon. It was a really fun experience, they said, and sad to leave behind.

Tuesday 27th August – dystopias

Slateduglies2divergentHunger-GamesThe display this week (put up by three S3 students) is all about what to read next after you’ve read The Hunger Games. There are lots of books on display about what happens when society goes wrong. From Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 to Teri Terry’s Slated – why not read a book about a bleak, dark and depressing future!

You can pick up a bookmark at the library desk with a list of all the books on the display, as well as some that didn’t make it because there wasn’t enough space – there are a lot of dystopian novels in this library.

Monday 26th August – Book of the Week

Little WomenLittle Women by Louisa May Alcott comes into the ‘books everyone should read’ category. Although in the UK it is often dismissed as a children’s book in the US it is considered (as it should be) a serious work of literature.

Little Women is a coming-of-age novel about four sisters – the ‘little women’ of the title – Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, whose father is away at war and whose mother is struggling to keep the family going. The girls are all very different and they cope with their circumstances in very different ways. In the course of this (not very long) story they grow up, go out into the world, fall in love and develop into the women they will be. It really is a book that will make you laugh and make you cry.

The blurb says…

Meg is the eldest and on the brink of love. Then there’s tomboy Jo who longs to be a writer. Sweet-natured Beth always puts others first, and finally there’s Amy, the youngest and most precocious. Together they are the March sisters. Even though money is short, times are tough and their father is away at war, their infectious sense of fun sweeps everyone up in their adventures – including Laurie, the boy next door. And through sisterly squabbles, their happy times and sad ones too, the sisters discover that growing up is sometimes very hard to do.

 

Friday 23rd August – Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters film review by ND

‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ wasn’t altogether too disappointing. Although it followed the plot of the story rather loosely and there was a surprise recasting of Chiron, the movie fixed some of its earlier mistakes (such as Annabeth’s hair) and even introduced characters that should have been there from the beginning. The monsters were really well done, and the characters were just as they should have been. I expected a bad movie, but I was pleasantly surprised.

We have copies of all the Percy Jackson books in the Library, as well as Rick Riordan’s other books.

Thursday 22nd August – The Ocean at the End of the Lane

ocean at the end of the laneThe Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of those books – the ones I finish, breathe a huge sigh of happiness because I have read such a perfect story and then promptly get grumpy because I have nothing else in my immense to-be-read stack that will come close to giving me that feeling.

Neil Gaiman is most scarily brilliant when he writes about magic and myths happening in our world – it’s so real that I find myself looking at the trees at the bottom of the garden warily, and wondering whether I should be more suspicious of crows…

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman is a magical book – I loved it, you should read it.

Wednesday 21st August – Free digital magazines on zinio

zinio plasma

 West Lothian Libraries have just launched a new service called Zinio which lets you read magazines for free on a tablet or mobile. There are about fifty different magazines available covering a wide range of interests, from Best and Guitarist to Cycling Pro and New Scientist. You need your West Lothian library membership to sign up – click on the picture to go to the site.

Tuesday 20th August – Book of the Week

greyhound of a girlThe first Book of the Week this year is Roddy Doyle’s A Greyhound of a Girl, one of the books that was shortlisted for the 2013 Carnegie Medal. It is a sweet ghost story about family and mother-daughter relationships.

The blurb on the back says:

Mary’s great-grandmother is a ghost.

But she’s not an old ghost. She’s a young woman who never lived to see her children grow up. Now she’s back on an urgent mission. She needs Mary’s help to give a dying woman one last, glorious adventure…