Sutherland Shire Libraries News

Books and Bickies is held each term offering  students in Years 3-6 a chance to borrow the new books in the library and share what they have been reading.

Here are some of the featured books you may like to read, you can request them from the Library!

Creepy Caves: Elf Girl and Raven Boy by Marcus Sedgwick
This is the final instalment in the Elf Girl and Raven Boy series by Marcus Sedgwick. The story started way back in Fright Forest when Raven Boy fell through the roof of Elf girl's hut. He was a big surprise!!
 Their adventures have continued and finally they reach the Creepy Caves where they must defeat the Goblin King. The Goblin King has sworn "to take over the whole world by tea-time or else!". Luckily Raven Boy and Elf Girl have three trolls, a rat, a magician, a Lord and a flying carpet to help them. Can be read as a
stand-alone but even better if you read all six books in the series.


Footy! by Felice Arena (Sporty kids series)
Felice Arena is back with a new series, Sporty Kids, suitable for newly independent readers. Kids who love Billie B Brown, Hey Jack and Boyz Own will enjoy these short chapter books about different sports. Great illustrations by Tom Jellett capture the action. Footy!???? Is that rugby league?, soccer?, AFL or rugby union? You'll have to read it to find out. We also have Swimming and other titles will be soon. Go to our yellow strip paperbacks to find this great new series.

A single stone by Meg McKinlay
Jena lives in an isolated valley dominated by a large mountain. Seven girls especially chosen and trained by the "Mothers" go into the mountain and navigate its tunnels in search of the valuable mineral, mica, found deep underground. It is dangerous work and Jena is the leader of the group. Jena's whole world is turned upside down when she discovers a secret effecting the whole village. A compelling read suitable for upper primary children 10 years +.






The Amulet Keepers, Book 2 of the TombQuest series, by Michael Northrop
When Alex's mother uses the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead to bring him back from the brink of death, she inadvertently summons other evil spirits from the underworld. In this book, Alex and his best friend Ren head to London, where people are going missing, victims of the terrifying Death Walkers; rare treasures are disappearing and rain of blood is pouring from the skies. Can Alex and Ren find Alex’s missing mother while they stop a powerful Death Walker  from destroying the city?


Dropping In by Geoff Havel
Sticks and Ranga live on the same street, go to the same school and love the same things - skateboarding and PlayStation. When new kid James arrives he soon becomes friends with the boys. He is smart and funny and really wants to go skateboarding with his new friends. There may be a problem – James has Cerebral Palsy and is in a wheelchair. But Ranga may have a solution…three mates, a beat-up old couch, a couple of skateboards and a steep hill ... what could possibly go wrong?

The Precious Ring by Anna Branford
From the author of the Violet Mackerel books comes a new series about Lily the Elf. Lily the Elf finds a beautiful ring. Lily loves the ring and uses it as a wonderful wading pool. But the ring belongs to a small human. Will Lily have to return it? Suitable for readers 7+  and on the shelves in our yellow strip collection. If you enjoyed this Lily story we also have The Midnight Owl with two more stories, The Elf Flute and The Wishing Seed coming soon.




Completely Cassidy, accidental genius by Tamsyn Murray.
Poor Cassidy is starting high school and is trying to create the right impression - you know, not too dorky! Despite her best efforts things don't always work out the way she wants. Her home situation doesn't help: pregnant mother, embarrassing father, older brother who doesn't want to know her (at home or at school!!!). Then on top of everything else she does a test that identifies her as gifted and talented. Can this possibly be true? Lots of humour in this story for upper primary aged kids.

The silence of the sea / Yrsa Sigurðardóttir ; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
A luxury yacht arrives in Reykjavik harbour with nobody on board. What has happened to the crew, and to the family who were on board when it left Lisbon?

Thora Gudmundsdottir is hired by the young father's parents to investigate, and is soon drawn deeper into the mystery. What should she make of the rumours saying that the vessel was cursed, especially given that when she boards the yacht she thinks she sees one of the missing twins? Where is Karitas, the glamorous young wife of the yacht's former owner? And whose is the body that has washed up further along the shore?

The most chilling novel yet from Yrsa Sigurdardottír, an international bestseller at the height of her powers.


The rainbow troops / Andrea Hirata ; translated from the Indonesian by Angie Kilbane
Ikal is a student at Muhammadiyah Elementary, on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a major achievement. His school is under constant threat of closure. In fact, Ikal and his friends - a group called The Rainbow Troops - face threats from every angle: pessimistic, corrupt government officials; greedy corporations hardly distinguishable from the colonialism they've replaced; deepening poverty and crumbling infrastructure; and their own faltering self-confidence. But in the form of two extraordinary teachers, they also have hope, and Ikal's education is an uplifting one, in and out of the classroom.

You will cheer for Ikal and his friends as they defy the town's powerful tin miners. Meet his first love - a hand with half-moon fingernails that passes him the chalk his teacher sent him to buy. You will roar in support of Lintang, the class's barefoot maths genius, as he bests the rich company children in an academic challenge.


The yellow eyes of crocodiles / Katherine Pancol ; translated from the French by William Rodarmor and Helen Dickinson

This novel is the story of a lie. But it is also a story of laughter and tears, of life itself.
When her chronically unemployed husband runs off to start a crocodile farm in Kenya with his mistress, Josephine Cortes is left in an unhappy state of affairs. The mother of two is forced to make ends meet on her meagre salary as a medieval history scholar.
Meanwhile, Josephine's charismatic sister Iris seems to have it all - a wealthy husband, gorgeous looks, and a tres chic Paris address-but secretly she dreams of bringing meaning back into her life.
And then a dinner party changes the sisters' destinies.
Iris is seated next to a famous book publisher to whom she spins a tale of the 12th century romance she's writing. When Iris charms him into offering her a lucrative deal for her book, she offers her sister a deal of her own: Josephine will write the novel and pocket all the proceeds, but the book will be published under Iris's name.

Mona / Dan Sehlberg ; translated from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
Eric Söderqvist, professor of computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, has invented Mind Surf, a thought-control system that allows people with disabilities to browse the web. Meanwhile, Lebanese Samir Mustaf, a former MIT professor whose daughter Mona was killed by an Israeli cluster bomb five years earlier, has just finished creating the most sophisticated computer virus the world has ever seen, for the purpose of launching a devastating cyber attack against Israel's financial system. When Eric's wife, Hanna, falls into a coma — struck by an aggressive and previously unknown virus, after having tested her husband's invention — the doctors are at a loss. Although everyone around him thinks he's gone mad, Eric becomes convinced that his wife has been infected by a powerful computer virus known as Mona, and that the only way he can save her life is by tracking down its creator. What follows is a compelling and high-octane pursuit. Conceptually breathtaking and emotionally powerful, Mona is a story about the good — and the evil — that people are prepared to do in order to save or avenge the ones they love.

Diary of the fall / Michel Laub ; translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

'I often dreamed about the moment of the fall, a silence that lasted a second, possibly two, a room full of sixty people and no one making a sound, as if everyone were waiting for my classmate to cry out ... but he lay on the ground with his eyes closed' A schoolboy prank goes horribly wrong, and a thirteen-year-old boy is left injured. Years later, one of the classmates relives the episode as he tries to come to terms with his demons. Diary of the Fall is the story of three generations: a man examining the mistakes of his past, and his struggle for forgiveness; a father with Alzheimer's, for whom recording every memory has become an obsession; and a grandfather who survived Auschwitz, filling notebook after notebook with the false memories of someone desperate to forget. Beautiful and brave, Michel Laub's novel asks the most basic u and yet most complex u questions about history and identity, exploring what stories we choose to tell about ourselves and how we become the people we are.


Cinderella girl / Carin Gerhardsen- Translated from the Swedish
Three-year-old Hanna wakes up to find she has been abandoned. Her family is gone. The house is locked. She is trapped. Meanwhile, a teenage girl has been found murdered aboard the Cinderella, a cruise ship which sails between Sweden and Finland. Detective Chief Inspector Conny Sjoberg visits the girl's home to deliver the tragic news. But as he investigates, it becomes chillingly clear that the girl's younger sister is in grave danger - unless the police can trap a vicious killer. And all the while, somewhere in Stockholm, a little girl waits to be found and rescued...

And then came Paulette / Barbara Constantine ; translated from the French by Justin Phipps
The feel-good bestseller that put the smiles back on French faces. When his son’s family move away (with one last argument on their lips), widower Ferdinand is left with only a sadistic kitten for company on a farm that was built for a family.
Just as loneliness starts to bite, he discovers his neighbour Marceline has long been shivering beneath a leaky roof. He welcomes her to his farm, temporarily of course, and also provides a home for her dog, and for Cornelius, her gluttonous donkey.
As each begrudgingly adjusts to the other’s quirks, yet more new arrivals appear. It seems that Ferdinand isn’t the only one who was all alone, and the dusty farm becomes a haven for lost souls of every age to share their sorrows and set about rediscovering their joie de vivre.
But amidst the newfound hustle and bustle, one final uninvited guest threatens to upset the apple cart once and for all…

My brilliant friend. Book one, Childhood, adolescence / Elena Ferrante ; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
My friendship with Lila began the day we decided to go up the dark stairs that led, step after step, flight after flight, to the door of Don Achille's apartment...I waited to see if Lila would have second thoughts and turn back. I knew what she wanted to do; I had hoped that she would forget about it, but in vain. My Brilliant Friend is a ravishing, wonderfully written novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. The two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, sometimes to their own detriment, as each discovers more about who she is and suffers or delights in the throes of their intense friendship. There is a piercing honesty about Ferrante's prose that makes My Brilliant Friend a compulsively readable portrait of two young women, and also the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country.

Frog by Mo Yan; translated from the original Chinese edition by Howard Goldblatt
When famine lifts and the population booms, Gugu becomes the unlikely yet passionate enforcer of China's new family-planning policy. She is unrelenting in her mission, invoking hatred in her wake. In her dramatic fall from deity to demon, she becomes the living incarnation of a reviled social policy violently at odds with deep-rooted cultural values. As China moves towards the millennium, a new breed of entrepreneur emerges with a perverse interpretation of the decades-old law. Tadpole finds himself again caught up in the one-child policy and its unpredictable repercussions on the human price of capital.


Ripper : a novel / Isabel Allende ; translated from the Spanish by Oliver Brock and Frank Wynne
The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda's father, she's reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her - Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco's elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL. Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world. When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother's disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother's life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she's ever faced before it's too late.

International Men's Health week is 15-21 June. Reading is an essential part of staying healthy, so here are some reading suggestions of books for blokes to read.

 Adventure

Quick by Steve Worland

Sent undercover with an unwilling French partner, Billy is thrust into the glamorous world of international motor racing as the diamond heists continue. But as Billy closes in on the thieves a far more sinister threat is revealed. With the fate of a city and the lives of half a million people in the balance, Billy will need to drive like never before to stop the worse act of terror since 9/11.




Book to movie

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

A gripping thriller set in Moscow, 1953. Under Stalin's terrifying regime families live in fear. When the
all-powerful State claims there is no such thing as crime, who dares disagree?
An ambitious secret police officer, Leo Demidov has spent his career arresting anyone who steps out of line. Suddenly his world is turned upside down when he uncovers evidence of a killer at large. Now, with only his wife at his side, Leo must risk both their lives to save the lives of others.
Inspired by a real-life investigation, Child 44 is a relentless story of love, hope and bravery in a totalitarian world. It is a thriller unlike any you have ever read.

Contemporary fiction

A short history of Richard Kline by Amanda Lohrey

I woke with a gasp. And lay in the dark, open-mouthed, holding my breath. That feeling... that feeling was indescribable. For a moment I had felt as if I were falling... falling into bliss". All his life, Richard Kline has been haunted by a sense that something is lacking. He envies the ease with which others slip into contented suburban life or the pursuit of wealth. As he moves into middle age, Richard grows angry, cynical, depressed. But then a strange event, a profound epiphany, awakens him to a different way of life. He finds himself on a quest, almost against his will, to resolve the 'divine discontent' he has suffered since childhood. From pharmaceuticals to New Age therapies to finding a guru, Richard's journey dramatises the search for meaning in today's world. This audacious novel is an exploration of masculinity, the mystical, and our very human yearning for something more. It is hypnotic, nuanced and Amanda Lohrey's finest offering yet - a pilgrim's progress for the here and now.

Fantasy/Sci Fi
Inside a silver box by Walter Mosley
"Two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself"


Humour
Analogue Men by Nick Earls

Andrew Van Fleet is 49 and feeling 50 closing in. He's bailed out of his private equity job for something that'll let him spend more time at home, but the house is overrun by iPads and teenage hormones and conversations that have moved on without him. Plus his ailing father is now lodged in the granny flat, convalescing from surgery and with his scrappy bulldog in tow. And then there's Brian Brightman, the expensive fading star at the radio station Andrew's signed up to manage, whose every broadcast offers fresh trouble. He's 49 too and, like Andrew, starting to wonder if the twenty-first century might prove to be his second best.



Biography
Into thin air by Jon Krakauer

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn’t slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top.  No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn’t made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.

War and Military 
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.


True Crime

Three crooked kings by Matthew Condon

Three Crooked Kings is the shocking true story of Queensland and how a society was shaped by almost half a century of corruption. At its core is Terence Murray Lewis, deposed and jailed former police commissioner. From his entry into the force in 1949, Lewis rose through the ranks, becoming part of the so-called Rat Pack with detectives Glendon Patrick Hallahan and Tony Murphy under the guiding influence of Commissioner Frank Bischof.

The next four decades make for a searing tale of cops and killings, bagmen and blackmail, and sin and sleaze that exposes a police underworld which operated from Queensland and into New South Wales. This gripping book exposes the final pieces of the puzzle, unearths new evidence on cold cases, and explores the pivotal role that whistleblower Shirley Brifman, prostitute and brothel owner, played until her sudden death.

Crime and thriller

Close your eyes by Michael Robotham

I close my eyes and feel my heart begin racingSomeone is comingThey're going to find me A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince.
A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince. Reluctantly, clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is drawn into the investigation when a former student, calling himself the 'Mindhunter', trading on Joe's name, has jeopardised the police inquiry by leaking details to the media and stirring up public anger.

With no shortage of suspects and tempers beginning to fray, Joe discover links between these murders to a series of brutal attacks where the men and women are choked unconscious and the letter 'A' is carved into their foreheads.

As the case becomes ever more complex, nothing is quite what it seems and soon Joe's fate, and that of those closest to him, become intertwined with a merciless, unpredictable killer . . .

History
Gallipoli by FitzSimons, Peter
On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail. Turkey regards the victory to this day as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the nation's Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated Australians and New Zealanders involved: the birth of their countries' sense of nationhood. Now approaching its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign, commemorated each year on Anzac Day, reverberates with importance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the battle, which was minor against the scale of the First World War and cost less than a sixth of the Australian deaths on the Western Front, are often forgotten or obscured. Peter FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, recreates the disaster as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.

Starting on the weekend of the 4/5 July 2015, Sutherland and Cronulla libraries will be extending their opening hours. The increased hours are in direct response to increased demand from the community.

Cronulla Library will be open from 9:00am until 4:00pm on Saturdays
(an extension of 4 hours on the current closing time of 12:00noon)

Sutherland Library will be open from 11:00am until 5:00pm on Sundays
(an extra 2 hours on the current 12:00noon - 4:00pm hours)