International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.
This year’s theme is ‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’. City of Parramatta Libraries recommend this list of new titles for readers to celebrate rich lives of these women as well as yourself. Continue reading
The Read Watch Play blog is the home of a monthly reading group that encourages everyone to ‘read’ & tweet about what they are reading.
Each month has a different theme, even if you don’t tweet why not use the themes as reading inspirations.
‘Reading’ can encompass anything that provides enjoyment, knowledge, understanding, and relaxation…be it a book, a movie, a game, or a piece of music.
CBCA has announced the shortlist for the Readings Children’s Book Prize for 2017.
The shortlisted titles are:
If you ever wonder what books to choose for your child or what to read next, here is a very thorough and diverse list of titles released by The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA), the list of Notable Books for 2017. This provides some very good readers advisory for kids in all age groups. You can reserve the titles at our library. Continue reading
Summary
‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird‘. Atticus finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel – a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice and hypocrisy.
Comments
While this story seemed to lack the ‘punch’ of a modern story, there were quite a lot of pros for this book. We enjoyed the overall simplicity of the writing, the simple setting and the quiet strength of the main characters. We’d all wished we had a father like Atticus. We can also see the impact this book would have had when it was first released and understand completely why it is studied in schools. While we have come a long way, the subject matter is still very much relevant today.
For some of our readers, it did lack the ‘pace’ of today’s stories. Overall though, we rated this book a commendable 7! This is definitely a book that everyone should read it at least once.
Rating – 7/10
Read by – Cultcha Club