Staff Pick

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What Alice ForgotWell the first book I read for 2014 was another Liane Moriarty book called ‘What Alice Forgot’ and it was great.

 

Book Summary Alice is twenty-nine. She is whimsical, optimistic and adores sleep, chocolate, her ramshackle new house and her wonderful husband Nick. What’s more, she’s looking forward to the birth of the ‘Sultana’ – her first baby.

But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her step-aerobics class and everyone’s telling her she’s misplaced the last ten years of her life.

In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she’s his worst enemy. What’s more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn’t speaking to her either. And who is this ‘Gina’ everyone is so carefully trying not to mention?

Alice isn’t sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn’t have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband forever? Continue reading →

Learning to read is learning how to live – from DRUM

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LGetting your children to read does far more than improve their test results – it also teaches them invaluable life lessons about morality and empathy, writes Kevin Donnelly.

An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report titled Let’s Read Them A Story analyses the test results for 15-year-old students in literacy across 65 countries and argues, “Students show a better ability to read and learn when their parents are involved in their education and when parents themselves value reading.”

The report also argues, “Parental involvement when children are entering primary school is strongly associated with reading performance and even more with instilling a sense of enjoyment of reading in children.”

For more details of this article please click http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-09/donnelly-the-power-of-reading/5191678