Ginnette Cameron-Gardner – Primary Teacher/Librarian

Congratulations to Samantha Lyons, Year 2 and Ashley Cohn, Year 5, who completed the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge during the term break.

Some reviews of great books held in the Primary Library:

A long walk to water: a novel by Linda Sue Park. Located at JF PAR

Subjects:  Refugees, Sudanese – Fiction; Children in Sudan – Fiction; War victims – Fiction; Sudan – Social conditions – Fiction; Survival – Fiction

Note on title page: Based on a true story. The book is written as 2 concurrent stories that take place almost 25 years apart. They are tied together by their location – the Sudan. There are 2 main characters: young Nya, a girl of the Nuer tribe in contemporary Sudan whose sole job is to walk miles across the blazing, barren countryside twice a day to fetch muddy water and the true story of Salva Dut, part of the Dinka tribe, one of the “lost boys” separated from his family by the civil war in 1985.

Park used this book as a platform to support Dut’s program, Water for South Sudan, a non-profit corporation with the goal of increasing the availability of safe drinking water by drilling wells.

The Primary Library holds 23 of The Magic Ballerina stories written by Prima Ballerina, Dame Darcey Andrea Bussell DBE who is an English retired-ballerina and a judge on the BBC reality show Strictly Come Dancing. There are many YouTube videos of Darcy Bussell which I am sure many of our students would find of interest. The Magic Ballerina stories are captivating stories of ballet and magic. They are ATOS Book Level 4.4 and the series has been borrowed and enjoyed by students in Years 1-4.  

Students who have been enjoying the Rainbow Fairies series by Daisy Meadows will find these a step up with stories about the same length but more varied. The stories introduce the traditional ballet stories such as Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. There are various protagonists, Delphie being the main protagonist in book 1 and various others in the series.

Magic Ballerina #1: Delphie and the Magic Ballet Shoes by Darcey Bussell  Located at JF BUS

Delphie is invited to join Madame Zarakova’s ballet school and, wearing the red ballet slippers given to her by the older woman, she finds herself in the Land of Enchantia, where she must bring the Nutcracker back to life by dancing.