The Wisdom Of Dog by Murray Ball

Review by Chris Harbrow (Year 11) as part of the 50 Book Challenge

This is a collection of cartoons from Murray Ball, with the main characters of Dog and Wal going about their daily lives, with the ups and downs of bring a rugby player and a farmer.  These characters are very loved and this book (which I chose for the library) will be really popular. It is so good, the library needs to get lots more of the Footrot Flats series!

Teens Face Book - a Bookmonth Event

 
Kyle Mewburn, Ella West and Vanda Symon are questioned by Sean and Will

 

The boys gather around the authors after the event!

This afternoon King's High School hosted a major event, the only event specifically for teenagers in Dunedin. March is Bookmonth in New Zealand, and our event was the first event in the whole of New Zealand. Students from schools across Dunedin came to King's to have an up close encounter with three of New Zealand's most awarded and well loved authors. They covered the entire range of audience from children's books to young adult books and adult readers. As you can see from the photos the students where thoroughly entertained and enjoyed the authors and the experience enormously.

Vanda Symon, Ella West and Kyle Mewburn were entertaining, illuminating and fascinating to listen to as they answered questions from the King's year 9 and 10 students. Roars of laughter were frequent as they discussed such questions as:

• Would you like your books to be made into a movie?
• How does it feel when someone rubbishes your book?
• Are some of your characters based on people you know or yourself?

The answers to these and lots of other questions were fun, interesting and the students came to realise that writing is more than just sitting in a room and writing down a good idea. We now know how the editing process happens, how much time it takes to write books, how much money writers make from their books, and how it feels to win awards, and how many things affect the books you write.

The audience discussing Kyle's puns!

Special mention must be made of Will and Sean who asked the questions and handled the at times challenging microphone!

Next week we will have a writers workshop with the writers here in the King's High Library, where groups of students will get ideas on how to improve their writing, and some fun exercises to get their writing juices flowing.

To get to take part in the writing workshop students must convince Ms Schaumann that they are the right person to be chosen for this special event. No more than 100 words of a convincing argument must be submitted to Ms S. by next Friday morning.