Hana's Top 10 for 2019

I’m going to divvy my top 10 of this year into five for me, and five that my kids and I have enjoyed. Share and share alike!

Top 5 for me:

Graphic novels - Late this year I found out about graphic novels too with thanks to the many suggestions and posts from fellow resident children’s and young adults librarian, Sas! I have particularly enjoyed “Giant Days”, a comic about three young girls and two guys navigating their way together through their university days, and Raina Telgemeier – graphic novel queen. She wrote and illustrated a series of three graphic memoirs titled “Smile”, “Sisters” and “Guts” her latest where she details her experience of developing anxiety as a child.

Young Adult fiction – This year I discovered that YA does not have to be read by young adults! My favourite this year was probably ‘All the bright places’ by Jennifer Niven, but I don’t like to single things out…

Young Adult non-fiction – Just because we’ve put something in our YA section, doesn’t mean it can’t be read by anyone. If you don’t want to be seen in that area, please just place a hold on one of the books. I read at least two great YA non-fiction titles this year that I’ve recommended to customers. One I just finished reading called, “Just mercy: a true story of the fight for justice” by Bryan Stevenson. Only at the end, did I recognise the writers’ voice, as he said something he’d also said in a documentary called “13^th” by Ava DuVernay. Just Mercy is an account of Bryan’s experience in the criminal justice system as a lawyer and advocate for wrongfully incarcerated people of colour, following his work and stand-out cases and clients he’s worked for, at no charge.

Non-fiction – Reading facts and learning more about the world we live in has always interested me, so when I came across this book, “Prisoners’ of Geography: ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics”, I jumped on it. It seems a bit boring at face value, but I actually learnt quite a bit about some of the historical reasons why countries and their governments do the things they do or how they got to where they are.

A second non-fiction book that I really appreciated this year is titled, “How to be calm” by Anna Barnes. A self-help book with a sky-blue cover and rounded page corners (somehow this is really complements the comforting nature of the content); it has simple reminders on each page and beautiful accompanying imagery and artwork. It’s a great book to have on hand J

Top 5 for my kids:

Puzzles – the libraries have heaps of these for kids if you haven’t found them yet. Check out the kids areas in each library. We’ve particularly enjoyed the many floor puzzles on offer, perfect for a 3 and a half year old boy.

Look and find books – These are great books to share on your lap with one to three children. It gets a bit difficult the more you have around you, so try to keep it to two at the most. We’ve enjoyed such titles as “Where’s the poo? A pooptastic searchand find book”, “Where’s the unicorn?” and “Where’s the unicorn now?” and of course there’s always “Where’s Wally?”. It all helps with getting them to notice the small things J

Narwhal and Jelly
Narwhal and Jelly was a surprising success for all my kids, the youngest being 3. It’s a series titled Narwhal and Jelly, about a couple of unlikely friends in the sea – a Narwhal and a Jellyfish – and is full of lots of silly puns that will amuse all.

It’s found in the junior illustrated (comic book) section and we have at least one in the series at all three libraries. But be warned, they aren’t staying on the shelves for long as people have already found out about them J

“The curious guide to things that aren’t”
Another surprising find for me, as I thought it’d be a bit difficult for my kids to guess these things. It’s a neat guessing game that goes through the alphabet describing things that are intangible, with easily understood clues for young kids. There’s about six clues for each thing, and as the clues continue, they naturally help the reader (or listener) to correctly guess the ‘thing’. I tried this book out at an early childhood centre where the youngest were 4 and a half years of age and they were intrigued to see what the next ‘thing’ would be on the next page.

Here’s an example of a ‘thing’ and the clues for it, “This starts with the letter G. You can’t see, touch, smell, taste, or hear it, but you feel it when you try to jump… And when you swim, it seems to disappear completely. Birds and airplanes have to overcome it, and when astronauts are up in space, they don’t feel it at all…”

Can you guess what it is?

“How (not) to annoy Dad”
This book is hilarious! It’s like they can see into our home life, our exact conversations with the kids and have put it in picture book form with cute Koala’s as the family’s characters. Written by Dave Hughes aka ‘Hughsie’ an Australian comedian, the koala family centres around Dad and his three koala children. His day starts bright and early and is filled with all manner of thoughts, questions, observations, arguments and comments from his offspring.

Example A “Find interesting things with Dad: “Dad, look at this spiky stick. I love it! Can you carry it home for me?” with a picture of the child who has found a ginormous stick, then one page later, “Dad, I found a new stick. I don’t need that one anymore”.

Accompanying voices on this second spread are, “Look, Dad! Cockroaches! I’m going to pat them!” and “Dad, I found an amazing rock. But I dropped it. Can you help me find it?” when the groundcover is rocks.

Hard to describe sorry, you’ll just have to get it out. Luckily we have one in each library! (Sorry, I’ve still got mine on loan, it’s doing good time).

Now I realise these two top 5’s don’t entirely and succinctly add up to a “top 10”. I apologise.
The library has more than 10 for me J