Teaching notes for New Zealand Books

From the latest NZ Book Council newsletter The School Librarian :

Did you know the Book Council has collected links to all the sites where publishers have made teachers’ notes available? It’s a great resource for teachers and librarians http://ow.ly/2nfFQ

Publishing houses often create teaching resources for their New Zealand publications, as well as linking to resources for all of their overseas partners. To see whether teaching notes exist for a title, find out which publisher it is from (this information will be on the imprint page, if not the spine of the book), and use the below links to search for and download the notes.

• Allen & Unwin
• HarperCollins (NZ)
• Gecko Press
• Penguin (NZ), also represents Reed, Raupo, Mallinson Rendel and Puffin imprints
• Random House (NZ), also represents Vintage and Black Swan imprints
• Scholastic (NZ)
• Text Publishing (AU)
• Walker Books (AU), also represents Candlewick Books (US)

Not a New Zealand book but here is a link to teaching notes for The Hunger Games, http://www2.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/h/HungerGamesTrilogyDiscussionGuide.pdf shared by Jane Ryan from Howick College.

Mockingjay on its way...

For those eagerly awaiting the third installment in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, here is an interesting interview with her in the meantime, from School Library Journal Executive Editor Rick Margolis

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/885800-312/the_last_battle_with_mockingjay.html.csp

In it, the author talks about her character Katniss, the origins of the bird of the title - mockingjay, links to stories from ancient Greece - Theseus and Spartacus, and the how and why of war as a theme in her writing...

From the interview :

What do you hope young readers take away from your books?

One of the reasons it’s important for me to write about war is I really think that the concept of war, the specifics of war, the nature of war, the ethical ambiguities of war are introduced too late to children. I think they can hear them, understand them, know about them, at a much younger age without being scared to death by the stories. It’s not comfortable for us to talk about, so we generally don’t talk about these issues with our kids. But I feel that if the whole concept of war were introduced to kids at an earlier age, we would have better dialogues going on about it, and we would have a fuller understanding.

Can those dialogues help put an end to war?

Eventually, you hope. Obviously, we’re not in a position at the moment for the eradication of war to seem like anything but a far-off dream. But at one time, the eradication of slave markets in the United States seemed very far off. I mean, people have to begin somewhere. We can change. We can evolve as a species. It’s not simple, and it’s a very long and drawn-out process, but you can hope.

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the first in a compelling trilogy... The second book is Catching Fire and the third one is due out this year - Mockingjay. They would be suitable for high school students and mature intermediate school readers.

Here is an entertaining review of the first book The Hunger Games by Elizabeth Bird on her great blog http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/90029009.html

And I've just come across Amity School's Bethany Media Centre http://www.bethanymediacenter.com/Home.html which created their own version of The Hunger Games in three parts - a trivia challenge based on the books, a physical challenge and a cornucopia challenge.

There is a description of what they did on their blog if you want to check it out http://amitybooktalk.blogspot.com/2010/03/hunger-games-party-activities-and.html
and a related tab on their website for the actual resources they created for the games http://www.bethanymediacenter.com/hungergames.html