Haslemere Library Chatterbooks

Over the summer Haslemere Library Chatterbooks took part in the 2020 Silly Squad Summer Reading Challenge. From Tuesday December 1st 2020 to Friday 15th January 2021 we are also taking part in the Winter Mini Reading Challenge.

How can children take part in the Winter Mini Challenge?

The Winter Mini Challenge is run through the Reading Agency’s year-round children's website.

To take part, children simply read three or more books - these can be any books of their choice. Every time they finish a book, they add it to their Challenge website profile and leave a short book review.

Reaching their online reading goal will unlock a virtual badge and a special Everyone Is A Hero certificate to print off and keep!

The website will also have a whole host of fun activities, videos and reading recommendations, plus an exciting competition. Children can visit the Winter Mini Challenge website at  www.wintermini.org.uk  from 1 December 2020 to start rating and reviewing their books and enjoying the online activities.

Haslemere Library Chatterbooks

Chatterbooks at Haslemere Library would like to pass on their congratulations to Claire Barker who won the Surrey Libraries' Children's Book Award.  We were really pleased by how much she appreciated the creative work inspired by her book Picklewitch and Jack.  

During in lockdown we have continued to read lots of books at home both in paperback and in ebook.  

Peril in Paris by Katherine Woodfine was one of the last books we took home with us.  It is a really exciting, historical mystery.

In May we visited RBdigital and read funny ebooks by authors such as David Walliams and Jeremy Strong.

Theo really enjoyed reading the ebook version of The Devil and his Boy by Anthony Horowitz.

Abigail has been reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett with some of her school friends.

In June we were invited to take part in the Surrey Libraries and Brooklands Radio Reading Aloud Competition. Congratulations to the winners who were asked to read the audiobook trailer for SeaBEAN by Sarah Holding.

Other competitions, this time with the Reading Agency have included the chance to win a free copy of Wonderscape by Jennifer Bell and Good Hawk by Joseph Elliott.

Over the next few months we are taking part in the 2020 Silly Squad Summer Reading Challenge!

Haslemere Library Chatterbooks

We have now read four of the five books on the Surrey Libraries' Children's Book Award shortlist. The books have prompted quite a lot of discussion from the delights of mouldy cheese to the secrets of growing plants.  Activities, so far, have included writing letters in the style of Picklewitch, designing our own dragons and a snail trail around the library.

Abigail with Night of the Living Ted by Barry Hutchison.

Miriam with The Boy who lived with Dragons by Andy Shepherd.

Amber with Sherlock and the Baker Street Curse by Sam Hearn.

Charlotte with Hotel Flamingo by Alex Milway and a copy of our Library Snail Trail.

A few letters written in Picklewitch style inspired by Picklewitch and Jack by Claire Barker.

Haslemere Library Chatterbooks

Over the New Year we read Mistletoe and Murder by Robin Stevens and a selection of other festive themed titles.  We all wrote a review of our favourite book to add to our notice board for everyone to read.  At the end of the session we took home our first two books from the shortlist of books for the Surrey Libraries' Children's Book Award.

Murder and Mystery

For our first meeting of the new year, we had some very interesting discussions about the book that we had read during the Christmas holiday. Mistletoe and Murder by Robin Stevens was enjoyed by many in the group. It's an atmospheric mystery, set in Cambridge where two friends are spending Christmas and solving a murder!
We even enjoyed some of the Chelsea Buns from Fitzbillie's Tea Room which is mentioned in the book and we ate them with some hot chocolate, whilst we discussed what it was that we found so entertaining about this story.

 This is one of a series of books where the two lead characters, Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are amateur sleuths, along with some of their friends.

Our next book is Sherlock and the Baker Street Curse by Sam Hearn and  is one of the books shortlisted in this year’s Surrey Libraries Children’s Book Awards. It is another mystery, but in a different style than we are used to reading. This book is written like a diary, with lots of interesting illustrations quite like a comic. I'm sure we're going to enjoy it.

Reigate Chatterbooks are taking part in the Surrey Libraries Children's Book award 2020.
The first book we have read is The Boy who lived with dragons by Andy Shepherd. We talked about owning a dragon and then made one out of pipe cleaners and scraps from the craft box.