Weblog Archive

The winners of this year’s CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards have been announced and they are all available to borrow from your local library.

The winner of the Carnegie Award is Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book

The winner of the Kate Greenaway Award is Freya Blackwood and Margaret Wild - Harry and Hopper

Both are fantastic books and worthy winners!

We're starting to gear up for this year's Summer Reading Challenge - the Space Hop.  It starts on 19th July and as usual there are loads of fab rewards if you read six books over the summer holidays.  The theme is space and so be prepared for plenty of spacecraft, aliens and meerkats (!).  Join at your local library from 19th July.

We celebrated National Bookstart Day in style this morning with an indoor beach party.  We didn't let the rain outside spoil our mood as we indulged in some stories and rhymes.  There was also the chance to decorate a fish to take home, as well as a sand pit and water pool (complete with fish, shells, crabs and seahorses).  No trip to the seaside is complete without an ice lolly and there we're plenty for all.

Even the librarian-mermaids had fun - although we did get some funny looks as we walked across the library with our tails!

Bookstart Bear had a famtastic final day in North Lincolnshire, enjoying the sunshine at Normanby Park.

Today's Booknic was even busier than yesterday with even more children joining us for picnics, stories and the chance to meet Bookstart Bear. He even got to take is teabreak in the Hall itself.

Again there were queues of children waiting to meet him, hug him, and some even wanted to have their photo taken with him. 

There were one or two children who were a little sceptical about Bookstart Bear, suggesting that he wasn't a real bear, since they thought that bears weren't blue.  However, obviously he is real since we've spent the last fortnight touring around North Lincolnshire with him, we have lots of photos in our online photo album to prove it, and hundreds of children have met him.  Just because he's one of a kind doesn't make him any less real - there's only one Father Christmas but that doesn't make us doubt his existence!

So it's back to his cave in Wakefield now for the Bookstart Bear, after a very busy but thoroughly enjoyable fortnight in North Lincolnshire.

Bookstart Bear has had a very busy day today.

He started the morning meeting and greeting at one of the local children's centres.  The children got the chance to talk to Bookstart Bear, whilst the bear was able to warm up for the rest of the day (not that he needed to in this weather!)

Lunchtime saw the arrival of Bookstart Bear at Normanby Park - just in time to join in with everybody's picnics!

The Bear proved to be a huge hit, with queues of children just waiting for their chance to meet the great bear and have a hug.  In fact many of the children said that meeting him was the highlight of their day.  One toddler was so taken with him that she spent the rest of the day chanting "Bear", and the rest of the evening watching a video of him - much to the despair of her mum.

All in all it was a great day, enjoyed by everyone.  And all of us, including Bookstart Bear can't wait to do it all again tomorrow.

Bookstart Bear is feeling a little disappointed right now, and a little hungry.  He was due to go to a fun day and teddy bears' picnic this lunchtime but it's been cancelled because of the rain.  He was hoping to take a leaf out of his cousin Yogi Bear's book and borrow some picnic hampers, but that can't happen now.  So a word of warning if you're coming to the Booknic at Normanby Park tomorrow, hang on to your picnic baskets because there's a peckish bear on the loose, and he just loves jam sandwishes!