School Holiday Fun

From craft activities, drawing and games to bookclubs, storytelling and group art projects, the Mandurah Libraries are a great place to spend your school holidays! So join us for some fun and games with your friends at the libraries.

A schedule of planned activities is available now, so check the library branches or newspapers or download them here:
Mandurah Library School Holiday Activities and Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre School Holiday Activities.

Be sure to book your child's spot as places are limited. All activities are FREE!

For more information, please contact any of our friendly library staff.

Included these holidays are three story-time sessions for older children to link in with a show presented at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. 

We invite you to

attend one of three continuous readings

of

Tim Winton's novel

'Blueback'.

If you don't know the story or would just like to hear it again, why not join us and listen to one of Winton's most personal and quintessentially Western Australian Stories. Blueback depicts the life of a young boy Abel and his mother, their relationship with the environment, and their desire to protect and preserve the natural habitat of the place they call home.

The reading sessions are on:

• Tuesday 10th April at 1pm at Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre,
• Thursday 12th April at 1pm at Mandurah Library, and
• Monday 16th April at 10am at Mandurah Performing Arts Centre.

No need to book, just come along.  Suitable for ages 5 plus and adults are welcome too.  There will be plenty of breaks and we estimate the reading will take approximately one and a half hours.  Children will be able to work on a craft activity while they listen to the story.

Then don't miss Peta Murray's stage adaptation of Blueback at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre from Wed 18th to Saturday 21st April. 

For more information about the performance and ticket prices, click here. 

This show is a mesmerising experience full of underwater imagery and exquisite puppetry. Beautifully crafted puppets of crabs, eels, abalone and coral create images of an underwater garden. This is a visual and an emotional journey through a stunning landscape, a fable for all ages that reminds us of why we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Love2read @ Crab Fest

Here are some photos of the activities Mandurah Libraries held at Mandurah's Crab Fest last weekend.  Crab Fest was a great success with 120,000 attending and everyone looking like they were having a great time.

Hundreds of people of all ages added messages to our Quote Me! Reading Wall then read the messages others had left there. 

The wall grew and grew,

and by the end of the event it was completely full on both sides.

Nearly a thousand people spread our reading activity throughout Crab Fest by wearing Quote Me! badges. The quotes covered a huge range of subjects and were from a very diverse range of sources including much-loved authors, philosophers, The Castle, Pink Floyd and The Simpsons! I have received reports of badges still being worn and as far afield as Joondalup.

But as much fun as these activities were, my favourite part of the weekend was when I was able to sit and simply read to young visitors to our marquee.

Even more enjoyable though was seeing parents and caregivers reading to the children in their care.

Throughout the National Year of Reading we are promoting the message that sharing a love of reading with with your children is one of the best things you can do to give them a head start in life.  Research into early brain development shows that a child’s ability to learn and to develop pre-literacy skills is greater if they are read to from birth.  Sharing books with children, even for as little as ten minutes a day, will help them to develop a love of reading that will be of benefit to them right throughout their lives.

As some of the Quote Me! badges put it:

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." — Emilie Buchwald

"The greatest gift is a passion for reading." — Elizabeth Hardwick

"The more you read, the more things you will know.The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr Seuss

"Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." — Mortimer Adler

"Reading and writing actually paid off!" — Homer Simpson

Quote Me! at the 2012 Channel Seven Mandurah Crab Fest

This weekend a major event is happening in Mandurah: the 2012 Channel Seven Mandurah Crab Fest.

Now in its 14th year, the annual event attracts up to 100,000 people and is bigger and better than ever before with an extensive variety of displays, activities and entertainment, including live performances, market stalls and a stunning fireworks display on Mandurah’s eastern foreshore.  You can find out more about Crab Fest here.

Mandurah Libraries and National Year of Reading will be at Crab Fest running a reading event called Quote Me!  Look for our gorgeous love2read marquee (featuring the the National Year of Reading flower logo) near the band rotunda on the Eastern Foreshore.

Remember all those great quotes you sent me a few weeks back?  Well there below is what we have done with them.  They are now made up into huge (8.5cm diameter) badges read for you to read, enjoy, take away and wear during Crab Fest.

We are also using these quotes as the starting point for the Quote Me! Reading Wall we'll build over the weekend. 

But we need YOU add to it! 

We want your favourite sayings, poems, jokes, lines from books, original writing, quotes - even just your thoughts on the day - to add to the wall.  Chill out at our craft table and create your "spot" to add to the the Reading Wall!

If your children feel like a more traditional reading experience at Crab Fest, then we would be delighted to sit and read with them.   And if you want to get a whole box of badges made too, I can highly recommend the services of the Mandurah office of Intework.

See you on the weekend!

Love2read picnic

Yesterday we took our fabulous new love2read marquee, our picnic gear and a selection of books and other reading material to Mandurah's beautiful Eastern Foreshore and we ... read. 

A guest reader read poetry to appreciative adults. Library staff and volunteer Roving Readers read picture books to children. Parents and grandparents joined in and read books with the children in their care.  Others just relaxed and read to themselves.  It was a very hot day but the shade of the trees and the lovely sea breeze meant it was a great place to be.

Thanks to everyone who came along especially and many thanks also to the people who just happened upon the event and joined in.  Your company made Love2Read @ The Eastern Foreshore a most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

As we packed up many many people asked "When are we doing this again?"  While we will have many other reading events like this one throughout the year, our next reading event is something completely different: Quote Me! at Channel Seven Mandurah Crab Fest is coming up this weekend, Sat 17th and Sunday 18th March.  Details coming soon.

Discards & Donations book sale at Falcon eLibrary & Community Centre

Here's a great chance to grab some bargain books and magazines. The Discards & Donations book sale at Falcon eLibrary & Community Centre starts on Monday March 12th and finishes on Saturday 17th.

Books and magazines are priced at 3 for $1.  Come in and find a bargain!

Our Story - Australia's biggest book club

Between November 2011 and January 2012, more than 16,200 thousand Australians voted at their local libraries and on the ABC website for the book to represent their state or territory during the National Year of Reading 2012. 

Together these 8 books form the "Our Story" collection and paint a picture of the Australian people and the land we live in. The winning titles were announced at the official launch of the National Year of Reading 2012 in Canberra. 

They are:

Smoke and Mirrors, by Kel Robertson (ACT);

The Idea of Home, by John Hughes (NSW);

Listening to Country, by Ros Moriarty (NT);

The White Earth, by Andrew McGahan (QLD);

Time’s Long Ruin, by Stephen Orr (SA);

Wanting, by Richard Flanagan (TAS);

Well Done, Those Men, by Barry Heard (VIC) and

Jasper Jones, by Craig Silvey (WA).

Now you can take part in Australia's biggest book group by reading the Our Story collection and contributing your reviews.

Head over to The National Year of Reading Book Club page at The Reading Room by clicking here.

Enter a brief review and enter the Our Story competition to win WIN a book pack of the 8 winning books and an e-Reader!

And if you are interested in reading the rest of the shortlist of Western Australian titles, here are the other titles people voted on:

My Place, by Sally Morgan;

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance, by Howard Pederson & Banjo Woorunmurra;

True Country, by Kim Scott;

Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton;

The Newspaper of Claremont Street, by Elizabeth Jolley.

All the Western Australian titles are held by Mandurah Libraries and we'll be getting copies of all the Our Story titles soon.  (To check the library catalogue and reserve your copy, click here.)