Answer A Question and Win

Divergent and The Hunger Games - two very popular books that have also been made into movies. Which is your favourite? Complete the form below to go into the prize draw (open to Kapiti District residents only). The winner will be drawn at the next Wrappers meeting on Friday 6th June.
Congratulations to Gem who was last month's winner.

Little Libraries

At the last Wrappers meeting a little library in a phone box was mentioned. If you do a Google image search for 'little library' you might be surprised at the amazing array of results. There is a whole movement of little free libraries in the USA which are book exchanges - take a book and leave a book.

The images below also include a library at a bus stop (very useful if you have a long wait for a bus or a lengthy journey) and an old fridge used as a book exchange in Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake (one of a variety of Gap Filler projects).

NZ Post Children's Book Awards Festival

This week we celebrate the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards finalists with a series of events in the district including:

• The Mastermind Competition – local primary schools compete to find out which team knows the most about the finalist books. Mayor, Ross Church, will front the finals on Friday and present the winners with their prizes.
• There will be special story times for the younger kids featuring the Picture Book finalists.
•  Most exciting of all (from the Wrappers perspective) is a workshop and lunch with author Fleur Beale on Wednesday. Her book, Speed Freak, is a finalist in the Young Adult fiction category. 

The NZ Post Children's Book Award 2014 winners will be announced on Monday 23rd June. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

At our May meeting The Wrappers discussed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which was a group read. There were quite varied opinions of the book. We used the Goodreads rating scale and the Wrappers’ ratings were:

One star (didn’t like it)         one person

Two stars (it was OK)          one person

Three stars (liked it)            one person

Four stars (really liked it)     two people

Five stars (it was amazing)  no one

A couple of people who read the book weren't at the meeting and couple didn't finish the book so it’s a very small sample size.  Here are the statistics from the Goodreads website:

One star      2%

Two stars    6%

Three stars  25%

Four stars   39%

Five stars    26%

568,532 people rated the book and the average rating is 3.81

There are 24,448 reviews if you would like to take a look at the opinions of other readers!

The Wrappers Recommend

Books discussed, liked and recommended at the May Wrappers meeting:

• Speed Freak by Fleur Beale ( It's a New Zealand Post Children's Book Award Finalist AND Fleur Beale will meet with the Wrappers at Paraparaumu Library this month!)

• Does My Head Look Big in This?  by Randa Abdel-Fattah

• Acid by Emma Pass

ROSE UNDER FIRE by Elizabeth Wein

“Hope is the most treacherous thing in the world. It lifts you and lets you plummet.”

American ATA pilot and amateur poet Rose Justice couldn’t plummet much further when she is captured in Nazi occupied France. Following her capture, Rose finds herself a prisoner of Ravensbruk; a notorious women’s concentration camp in Northern Germany. Here Rose encounters cruelty, violence and despair that she never would have believed possible. In a place where death is more common than life, will courage and friendship be enough to save Rose from the same fate as those surrounding her?

 I thought this was a great read, definitely one of the better wartime novels for teens that I’ve read. However I also found it quite morbid and it was a bit haunting as the author didn’t skate over or sugar coat the more horrific parts of the book. Not for the fainted hearted but certainly worth a read if you can handle it!

Reviewed by Melanie