Volume 26 Issue 20 21 Jul 2017 27 Tammuz 5777

From the Primary Library

Ginette Cameron-Gardner Primary Teacher/Librarian

Welcome back to school. I hope that you had a wonderful vacation and travelled the world through the pages of the books you read. There are many new books in the Primary Library and one of my favourites is The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman by New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer.

If you enjoy Scrabble, Chess or any other board game that has a National Championship then you will relate to this book, as 3 children who have nothing in common except Scrabble come to the Tournament with the aim of winning. They have very different backgrounds and different reasons for wanting to win. 

April Blunt has three sporting champions as brothers. She is not at all sporty and is trying to find a way of achieving. Nate Saviano would rather ride his skateboard but his father is trying to live vicariously through him and pushes Nate to win the Championship that he lost 25 years before. Duncan Dorfman has moved to a new town, his single mum’s old hometown, and is trying to fit in. He discovers that, not only is he good at Scrabble, he can actually feel what the letters are through the pouch, which gives him an unfair advantage if he uses it. This gift is the touch of magic in the book.

This is a well-structured story that has shrewd observations and wry humour as it explores how these preadolescent boys and girls search for identity.

Readers will be anxious to discover who will take home the grand prize of $10,000, but there’s much more at stake than winning and losing.

NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge 2017

 

Online Student Reading Records need to be completed by 25 August 2017

Mazal tov to the following students who completed the NSW Premiers Reading Challenge by entering their reading records over the vacation:

Year 6 students: Allie Armstrong, Benjamin Brock, Toby Danon, Alexis Demos, Sophie Freedman, Ashley Goldman, Ella Hart, Aiden Merten, Tali Yedid and Ethan Zines.

Year 7 students: Myles Cohn, Anna Davis, Nathalie Freed, Eden Glass, Jesse Keyser, Matthew Lowy and Year 9 student, Miriam Itzkowitz. 

I am hoping that there will be a flurry of students entering their reading soon as there are only a few weeks to go. The Emanuel community members are great readers but not so great at entering reading. Some students only need one book entered to complete their record on the NSW Premiers Reading Challenge. 

Primary Library Friday closing hours

The Primary Library will be closing at 3.30 pm during Term 3 on Fridays for Shabbat.