The Inky Awards Short List Announcement

Following on the CBCA’s recent announcement of their Book of the Year Winners, the Centre for Youth Literature has announced the short list for the Inky awards.  The Inky awards are different to the CBCA awards in that the books are short listed by a reading panel of young adult judges and then the winner is decided by ya readers by a voting for their favourite novel.  The competition is divided into two categories, the Gold Inky for Australian titles and the Silver Inky for International novels. The Inky Awards are an annual literary prize for the best new Young Adult books.

We are very excited to see that two novels close to our Loreto heart, Fairytales for Wild Girls and Every Breath have been named on the short list.  Allyse Near, author of Fairytales for Wilde Girls is an ex Loreto student and Ellie Marney, author of Every Breath, recently visited our school and impressed all who met and heard her speak.  Congratulations to all short listed authors and good luck in the voting.

Ellie Marney visits Loreto College

On Wednesday, 20th August we were delighted to welcome author Ellie Marney to Loreto College.  Ellie spoke to the Year 10 students and then ran a writer’s workshop with an enthusiastic group who learnt much about the skills in writing crime fiction.  Ellie then joined the Loreto Book Club, On the Same Page, for lunch and a chat before finishing the visit with an interview conducted by Year 11 student, Erin.

Ellie’s visit was a hit with all who met her or had the good fortune to be present in one of her sessions.  Thank you Ellie for spending time with us at Loreto and we are hoping that Book 3 in the Every series isn’t too far away!  We have to find out what happens with Watts and Mycroft. 🙂

Ellie Marney’s visit

Book Week is coming …

My favourite week of the year is fast approaching.  It begins on Friday, 15th August with the winners of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards announced and continues until the following Friday.  We have lots planned for that week including a fabulous guest author!

Ellie Marney, whose debut novel, Every Breath, has had everyone talking will be our special guest on the 20th.  Her new novel, a sequel to Every Breath titled Every Word, continues the story of Mycroft and Rachel as they travel to London and find themselves tangled in a new murder mystery.

There is much to look forward to as we count down to Book Week 2014!Every breath

The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton

Thank you to our Head of English, Adrienne, for the following review of the 2013 Booker Prize winner – The Luminaries by New Zealand author Eleanor Catton.

Set in 1866 in the South Island of New Zealand, this story follows the recently arrived Walter Moody who is an inadvertent participant in a discussion by the local men about an unsolved mystery of missing gold, missing men and mistaken identity. Not for the faint-hearted with its 800+ pages, this novel is a remarkable example of fascinating characterisation, convoluted but controlled plot and the gold rush era of New Zealand. Best of all, though, is its description of the rain-sodden Hokitika and its role in the action and mood of the story.

We have this award winning novel in our collection if you too would like to discover why this novel has received such acclaim.

What to read? Two lists compiled by On The Same Page – the Loreto Student Book Club

The On the Same Page ladies are a wise and cluey bunch.  They have put together two lists for fellow students, to offer as a reading guide.

Year 7 – 9                                                        

Angel Creek by Sally Rippin                                                      

Breathe by Sarah Crossan                                                          

Quincy Jordan by Jennifer Storer                                          

Pirouette by Robyn Bavati                                                         

Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati                                   

The Invisible Hero by Elizabeth Fensham                           

I Was a Teenage Popsicle by Bev Katz Rosenbaum         

Chequers by John Marsden                                                       

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden       

The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa                                      

Once, Then, After and Now by Morris Gleitzman            

Divergent series by Veronica Roth                                         

Emily the Strange by Rob Reger                                             

Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke                                         

Mother’s Day by Anne Brooksbank                                       

Father’s Day by Anne Brooksbank                

Year 10 – 12

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brook                                   

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil

Every Day by David Levithan

Between Shades of Gray by Ruth Sepetys

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Paper Towns by John Green

The Cousins’ War Philippa Gregory      

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher                     

Shift by Em Bailey

Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia

Dark Secrets series by Elizabeth Chandler

Maze Runner series by James Dashner

 

                                         

Celebrating Shakespeare’s 450th birthday at Loreto

On 24th April, the Loreto Ballarat community celebrated William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday with a huge birthday bash!  The day was a joyous celebration and the Library set up a fabulous display highlighting some of the Bard’s most famous works including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Summer Night’s Dream.  Library staff dressed up as the three witches from Macbeth which certainly added to the fun.

What a talented Library team, to be able to put this wonderful display together on only day 3 of the term.

 

Celebrating Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday on PhotoPeach

Book Review: You Don’t Even Know

You Don’t Even Know

 by Colac author Sue Lawson is a heartbreakingly sad story of a family in distress.  The main character is Alex who we learn is in hospital recovering from a serious accident.  His ‘friendship’ with a fellow hospital patient becomes important to both of them for very different reasons.  Although there are many sad moments this is ultimately a book with hope and optimism.

You Don’t Even Know has been selected by the CBCA Book of the Year Judges as a Notable book of 2013 in the Older Reader category.  This emotional story deserves a wide readership.

You don't even know cover

Wattpad and Fanfiction – A Brave New World

Our Book Club topic today was Wattpad and FanFiction.net and what a lively discussion it was!  The majority of club members all accessed these two websites on a regular basis and the room was divided on what site was better.  A member of our team has contributed to one of these sites and spoke about how amazing it is to receive positive feedback from readers.

In looking at these two sites they are clearly very different, with FanFiction as the name implies, dedicated to celebrating published stories  that the reader feels a connection with.   So much so they may create a new story, or they may introduce new characters into the story or they may rewrite the ending.  In looking at a current list in FanFiction.net the ten most popular novels are

and the number of times these stories have been written about are next to the title and these are BIG numbers!

Wattpad is quite different.  As David Streitfeld in a recent article for the New York Times writes

Wattpad is a leader in this new storytelling environment, with more than two million writers producing 100,000 pieces of material a day for 20 million readers on an intricate international social network …  This makes Wattpad a powerful force in the publishing world and he goes on to say,

This is writing reimagined for a mobile world, where attention is fragmentary. 

He speaks of the trend to serialise stories, perfect for those of us who have a few spare minutes to spare whilst waiting for a bus or waiting for the lights to change, just enough time to read a new chapter from our favourite author and much like what used to happen in the 1840’s with the writer Charles Dickens who often had his novels serialised.  Below is a screenshot from Wattpad with some quite amazing statistics.    With Wattpad you can get live story updates from your favourite writers and read them anywhere, anytime.

Congratulations Markus Zusak

A number of years ago, (actually it must have been 1999) I was present at a book launch in Melbourne. The young author was introduced by Agnes  Nieuwenhuizen and she spoke about this young author as one who would go onto very big things.  Indeed, Agnes was right because Markus Zusak has gone onto big things, especially with his award winning novel The Book Thief.   Recently  made into a movie starring Geoffrey Rush, The Book Thief  is being discovered by more and more people.

It was with great excitement I read Markus had recently been awarded the American Library Association Margaret A. Edwards Awardzusakmarkus01 for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

PHILADELPHIA — Markus Zusak is the recipient of the 2014 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens for “The Book Thief,” “Fighting Ruben Wolfe,” “Getting the Girl,” and “I Am the Messenger.” The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), announced the award today at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, held Jan. 24 – 28 in Philadelphia.

 Congratulations Markus on this significant and well deserved Award.