Come and hear Kate Colley from Bloomin' Books at Pizza and Pages

Do you like Pizza?
Do you like books?
Are you in High School?

If you answered yes to these questions then you might like to come along to our very special Pizza and Pages at Sutherland Library.

This is a night where you get to browse and choose new books for the Library while being entertained by guest speaker Kate Colley from Bloomin' Books, Caringbah. Kate will show you a selction of some new release titles.

And the best part is . . . FREE PIZZA! That's right, it's our shout. I don't know about you, but I love pizza - the smell, the toppings. Yum! Just thinking about it is making my stomach rumble.

So come along for this great night of pizza and pages

Bookings are essential so get in early by calling 97100178
Where: Sutherland Library
When: Wednesday 3rd November
Time: 7pm - 8pm
For: High School Students

Have some terrifying fun this Halloween

Halloween is just around the corner and we think its the best time of year to turn all the lights down and curl up with a good scary book or movie.

So, to celebrate, we've asked some of our staff to recommend their favourite scary books or movies:

Jacinta: I've read Interview with the vampire and all the other Anne Rice Books years ago. They are still the best written vampire books I've ever read.

Max: I remember the The Exorcist was a page turner. (Or was that a head turner?)

Karen: Carrie is the classic horror story of a prom night gone wrong by Stephen King. I'm usually not a fan of horror and the last time I read Stephen King I quickly gave up (in my defence, I was 11). So I was surprised when I found I actually loved this book. As my sister said 'it's like Matilda gone wrong'. It's the story of Carrie, a senior High School student who is horribly bullied at school and abused and tortured at home by her fanatically religious mother. When Carrie discovers she has Telekinetic powers the results are catastrophic and throw a whole town into disarray. Read more of this review.

I also remember loving the Goosebumps series, by R.L. Stine as a Kid. They were as popular as Twilight and Harry Potter when I was going to school and they're still being borrowed today.

Jess: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood explains the before, after and during of one of America's most shocking and gruesome crimes of the 20th century. Capote draws on his own observations and interviews with the convicted murderers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, Kansas State investigators working on the case and townsfolk of Holcomb, Kansas just outside of which the Clutter family lived. In Cold Blood was a chilling novel to read, it sucks you in the same way a car accident might - horrifying and terrible but unable to tear your gaze away from. The detail Capote puts into his work is something he is famous for and when reading this novel you almost forget that it is non-fiction. Read more of this review.

Angela: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist combines a disturbing mix of supernatural and a social commentary on a depressing Swedish suburb in the 1980s. The characters deal with issues such as bullying, alcoholism, drug abuse, pedophilia, crime and a range of emotional connections.

Oskar is a product of divorced parents with their own issues. He is bullied at school and has very few real friends. Then 12 year old Eli moves in next door. Eli is also a social outcast but for a very different reason. Eli doesn't go to school and only comes out at night. Eli is not really a girl but rather a 200 year old vampire who remains looking like a 12 year forever. Eli's need for a supply of fresh blood takes the story into a series of gory murders. Marginalised by their peers, Oskar and Eli become friends. Eli encourages Oskar to fight back leading to a horrifying conclusion. Read more of this review.

Cathy: Some eerie viewing for Halloween is the Swedish-language film titled 'Let the Right One In'. The film is in our Library DVD Collection and is based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It was originally released in 2008 and is directed by Tomas Alfredson.
The main character is a bullied, young boy and even though it is a horror film, quite shocking at times, it is viewed through his naïve and innocent perspective. The surreal setting and dark overtones add to the suspense and unfolding plot. However, to elaborate further would spoil the experience.

Brian: Justin Cronin’s The Passage is an epic story of enraged creatures roaming a post-viral America thirsty for the blood of the few remaining uninfected humans who struggle to keep the beacon of civilisation alight.

Justin Cronin has populated his novel with many characters that develop significant relationships within the core group of survivors, but even the infected, the “virals”, have a human history that adds complexity, even a certain poignancy, to the story. This close attention to the characters’ stories is combined with a detailed rendering of an American landscape utterly transformed by catastrophe. Read more of this review.

Other suggested reads by Monique:

Honey Brown. “Red Queen” (2009, Australian shadows award finalist)
Agatha Christie. “Hallowe’en party
D. Harding. “Tricks and treats: The ultimate Halloween book
Steven M. Irwin. “The dead path” (2009, Australian Shadows award finalist)
Stephen King. We have approximately 50 titles to choose from.
Tracey O’Hara. “Nights cold kiss
Edgar Allan Poe. “Tales of mystery and imagination” (1001 books)
Preston Douglas. “Cemetery dance
Mark “Chopper” Read. “One thing lead to another” (anything he writes is scary in my book, there are no requests on this title at time of posting)
Mary Shelley. “Frankenstein” (available from Overdrive as an audiobook)
Kaaron Warren. “Slights” 2009 (Australian Shadows award winner)
Leave a comment and let us know what your favourite scary books and moviews are. We'd love to hear from you. Happy Halloween.

More Holiday Fun @ Caringbah Library

Sutherland was not the only Library to have Science Madness Fun in the last school holidays. All branch Libraries also had their fair share of the madness with songs, games, stories and craft at their free drop in sessions.

On the 28th of September  at Caringbah Library two of our staff members Paul and Melissa (dressed as mad scientists) presented the holiday activity Science Madness.
There was a large turn out of 46 children eager to see what science activities, stories, craft and film would be shown.

These drop-in sessions are free and presented every school holidays. To find out  what's on in Summer, keep an eye on our Events Calendar.

To see more photos of our school holiday science madness, check out our Flickr page.

Holiday Fun @ Sutherland Shire Libraries

If you were in Sutherland Shire Libraries during the last school holidays you may have heard whooshing, bubbling and crackling as children enjoyed our great range of Science Madness school holiday activities.

50 Lucky children attended Big Science, Big Fun where they thoroughly enjoyed seeing gigantic bubbles, flying toilet paper, levitating balls, a giant gyroscope and some very fun hair-raising electricity experiments. All children had a fantastic time and learnt just how much fun science can be. This event was so popular it was booked out well before the school holidays even began.

The fun didn't stop there, however. Throughout the school holidays, all Kids were welcome to drop into any Branch Library to enjoy some Science Madness. Here they read stories, sang songs and played games all about Science. Kids also made their own Jack in the Box - to scientific specifications of course. These sessions were run by our very own scientists - we know, because they were wearing lab coats (check out Dr Payne on the left).

Every school holidays, Sutherland Shire Libraries host a range of fun, memorable activities that Kids just love. To find out more about upcoming activities, keep an eye on our Events Calendar. We'll see you next holidays.

2nd Annual Sutherland Shire Writer's Festival

The 2nd Annual Sutherland Shire Writer's Festival is being held on Sunday, November 14th at the Gymea Community Centre.

A fantastic group of authors and FAW group members will be hosting sessions throughout the day on a variety of topics, including tips on how to get published and writing for young adults. For more information on the Writer's Festival visit their website.

The Sutherland Shire Libraries offer a range of excellent resources useful to all writers from beginners just starting out through to published authors looking for inspiration or researching facts. Check out the below texts available to borrow through any of the Shire Libraries.

The everything creative writing book : all you need to craft well-written and marketable stories, screenplays, blogs, and more by Wendy Burt-Thomas

The beginner's guide to getting published by Chriss McCallum

The art of romance writing : practical advice from an international bestselling romance writer by Valerie Parv

How not to write a novel : 200 mistakes to avoid at all costs if you ever want to get published by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

1001 hideous history facts : delve into the depths of our despicable past! by Alex Woolf

Plus many more! Contact or visit your local library during opening hours for assistance.

Watch Health Videos Online

The Library currently subscribes to a valuable health and wellness database called Consumer Health Complete. Here you can find lots of information on a wide range of health and wellness issues. Recently, Consumer Health Complete have added a new range of Health Daily Videos to their collection. These videos are short and easy to understand. They provide basic visual information on topics such as workplace health, thyroid disorders and eye care.  These health videos have been produced by NBC and there are about 40-50 new videos added each week.

Consumer Health Complete contains information in a variety of different formats including fact sheets, evidence based reports, pictures, diagrams and encyclopedia entries. You can search the database or browse by topic. Some of the topics covered include alternative medical treatments, drugs and medication, pregnancy, smoking, depression and even baby names! There are also a number of e-books you can view including the Mayo Clinic Guide to Women's Cancers and the AMA Complete Medical Encyclopedia. In addition to this, the database contains its own medical dictionary so if you're not sure how to spell a word, it's easy to look it up.

So whether you're doing a school assignment, trying to find out more about a particular condition or even trying to find inspiration for a baby name take a look at Consumer Health Complete for all your health and wellness needs. You can access this database by using a valid Sutherland Shire Libraries card.