book list – Hampshire Libraries

5 festive reads for children this winter

December 1, 2022 hattiebdtLeave a comment

As the weather gets colder, it’s the perfect time to cosy up in the library or at home and share a story with your little ones. Escape to faraway lands and engage their imagination with stories about adventure, friendship, and mystery.

We’ve prepared a list of our favourite festive stories to borrow from your local library, so you can keep your children entertained over the winter months. Based in chilly settings, these beautifully illustrated picture books have twists, turns and heaps of snow to get you excited for the magic of the holidays.

The Snowman™ and The Snowdog by Raymond Briggs

The Snowman™ and The Snowdog is the sequel to much-loved classic The Snowman™. Billy isn’t full of festive cheer as his beloved old dog has passed away. When snow starts to fall, Billy builds a snowman, and with his leftover snow builds a snowdog too. Later that night, something magical happens; Billy embarks on a wonderful snowy adventure as The Snowman™ and The Snowdog come to life.

And you can join The Snowman™ and The Snowdog in real life on a festive winter wander around some of Hampshire’s most spectacular country parks. A Winter Wander with The Snowman™ and The Snowdog is taking place at Royal Victoria Country Park, Queen Elizabeth Country Park and Lepe Country Park. Head to the event website to book now.

The Storm Whale in the Winter by Benji Davies

The Storm Whale in Winter is a follow up to Benji Davies’s bestselling book The Storm Whale. Last summer, Noi rescued a little whale when it washed ashore in a great storm. Now he longs to see his friend again. Winter sets in and Noi worries about his whale and if it can survive the harsh conditions. 

One night Noi thinks he sees the whale out at sea and rushes outside for a glimpse of it. Soon the whale may be lost in the blanket of ice and snow – who will rescue him? Follow Noi and his old friend on an emotional story about long-lasting friendship. This beautifully illustrated tale is full of busy scenes and captivating characters, to keep children engaged while reading along.

No Sleep for Bear by Duncan Beedie

Winter is approaching and it’s time for Bear to have a nice long sleep. But the more he tries to get to sleep, the more awake he feels. So, he decides to copy his forest friends who seem to doze off without any trouble: he sings in the trees like Blackbird, burrows underground like Badger, and even hangs upside down from his cave roof like a bat. But nothing works – until wise Frog shows him how to relax, and soon the forest is reverberating with his snores! This is the perfect story to send your little ones off to sleep on a chilly winter’s night.

The Snow Dragon by Abi Elphinstone

When the first snow of winter falls, Phoebe wishes for it to bring with it some much-needed magic. In Griselda Bone’s Home for Strays, magic, daydreaming, and doodling are banned. Just as Phoebe is about to give up hope, a Snow Dragon appears and whisks her away on an adventure. An enchanting tale, full of fantastical creatures and winter magic. The Snow Dragon is also available to borrow as an audiobook to listen along as the little ones drift off to sleep.

Snow Penguin by Tony Mitton

In the frozen Antarctic, one curious little penguin decides to explore the ice, snow and sea. On his travels he sees two blue whales, a family of sea lions and a whole school of orcas, but soon Penguin starts to miss his own family. Sometimes coming home is the best adventure of all. Told in rhyming couplets, this feel-good book explores themes of bravery and courage. Cosy up on Christmas morning and follow this little penguin’s journey.

If your kids would like to try out some other books this winter, head over to the Reading Agency’s website to find out more about the mini winter reading challenge. This challenge is full of fantastic books to discover this winter. Hurry and complete the reading challenge before the holidays end.

Earth Matters

November 8, 2021August 16, 2022 niccishepherd1 Comment

Scientists are observing changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

The Earth’s climate is changing, and the role of human influence on the climate system is undisputed, yet the report also identifies the role of climate change in intensifying specific weather and climate events such as extreme heat waves and heavy rainfall events for the first time.

Stabilising the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and net zero CO2 emissions, challenges delegates are meeting to discuss at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow at the end of this month.

In recognition of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, we have created the ‘Earth Matters’ collection of fiction and non-fiction books, eBooks and eAudiobooks, to compliment our existing Earth Heroes environmental collections for children and young adults.

Fiction books

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Set in the not-too-distant future, in the aftermath of a catastrophic event that has wiped out human civilization as well as most humans, Oryx and Crake is a novel about the pitfalls of genetic modification.

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

In a world wrecked by climate change, Hubert, Seth and Natalie turn their back on the world of rules, jobs and ‘walkaway’ into the empty lands – lawless places where predators, human and animal flourish. Their journey brings them into contact with the initial pioneer ‘walkaways’ who are building a post-scarcity utopia.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Nine strangers, each in different ways, become summoned by trees, brought together in a last stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest. ‘The Overstory’ unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable, ranging from antebellum New York to the late-20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, revealing a world alongside our own – vast, slow, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us.

Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

On the Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature. As the world around her is suddenly transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged?

The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin

The first book in the award-winning Broken Earth trilogy, Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, there will be war for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night, but Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard

This fast-paced narrative by the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’ is a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.

Non-Fiction books

How to Save Our Planet by Professor Mark Maslin

How can we save our planet and survive the 21st century? How can you argue with deniers? How can we create positive change in the midst of the climate crisis? Professor Mark Maslin has the key facts that we need to protect our future. ‘How to Save Our Planet’ is a call to action, guaranteed to equip everyone with the knowledge needed to make change.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Silent Spring is Rachel Carson’s bestselling, passionate exposure of the effects of the indiscriminate use of chemicals. She describes how pesticides are applied to farms, forests and gardens, with scant regard to the consequences.

We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer

Climate crisis is the single biggest threat to human survival. And it is happening right now. We all understand that time is running out – but do we truly believe it? And, caught between the seemingly unimaginable and the apparently unthinkable, how can we take the first step towards action, to arrest our race to extinction? We can begin with our knife and fork. With his distinctive wit, insight, and humanity, Jonathan Safran Foer presents the essential debate of our time as no one else could, bringing it to vivid and urgent life and offering us all a much-needed way out.

Earthshot by Colin Butfield

The Earthshot concept is simple: Urgency + Optimism = Action. We have ten years to turn the tide on the environmental crisis, but we need the world’s best solutions and one shared goal – to save our planet. The Earthshots are unifying, ambitious goals for our planet which, if achieved by 2030, will improve life for all of us, for the rest of life on Earth, and for generations to come. This book is a critical contribution to the most important story of the decade.

The Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson

The Garden Jungle’ is about the wildlife that lives right under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the pavement, and in the soil beneath our feet. Dave Goulson explains how our lives and ultimately the fate of humankind are inextricably intertwined with that of earwigs, bees, lacewings and hoverflies, unappreciated heroes of the natural world.

How to Repair Everything: A Green Guide to Fixing Stuff by Nick Harper

Not everything has built-in obsolescence – as this fantastically handy guide to fixing everyday objects proves! Whether you need to repair a strap on a favourite handbag or mend a leak in a washing machine, this book is packed full of tips and tricks of the trade for the person who likes to do-it-yourself.

You can also find these books on our BorrowBox shelf: Earth Matters | Hampshire Library Service – BorrowBox.

Sustainability at Hampshire Libraries

November 8, 2021August 16, 2022 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment

Supporting the community for a greener future.

Some of the world’s most influential people have been gathering in Glasgow for the United Nations 26th Climate Change Conference (COP26). We wanted to share with you what we’re doing to make our libraries more sustainable, and how we can help you join the conversation too.

Making libraries greener

As part of a decarbonisation scheme, we have installed energy efficient lighting throughout our buildings and replaced all windows with double glazing to reduce our energy usage. There are smart meters installed in every library so that we can be mindful of the energy we use, and the solar panels installed on the roofs of several of our libraries ensure that the energy we do use is as clean and green as possible. We even have a fleet of electric vans to make sure that our book deliveries are eco-friendly.

Creating a space to learn

We’re not just thinking about how we can be more sustainable; we want to help you do the same too. Sitting at the heart of the community, our libraries play an important role in providing access to information on climate change, sustainability, and other environmental issues. To help you learn about the topic we’ve curated a special Earth Heroes collection full of really interesting books for children and young adults, with a third collection for adults coming out soon!

Supporting community action

Hayling Island Library is home to the Hayling Island Community Centre Association’s Community Pantry scheme designed to tackle food deprivation in the area. The pantry offers a range of donated fresh and frozen food as well as dried goods and sold at a far lower cost than shops or supermarkets and all funds are put back into the scheme to keep it running.

With support from Hampshire Libraries, Plastic Free Ringwood and Ringwood Actions for Climate Change also recently opened a community fridge and freezer at Ringwood Library. The initiative accepts surplus food from local businesses to be redistributed throughout the community, helping to reduce food wastage in the area. The community fridge saved 1 ton of food from going to waste in the first three months that it was open!

Written by Isaac Fravashi

Books and me: Carly Harrod

October 5, 2021 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment

Carly Harrod from Hampshire Countryside Service tells us about the books that inspired a career with nature and why adults should read more children’s books.

Where’s your favourite place to read?

I like to find a nice sunny spot in the garden to sit and read my book, so I tend to read more in the summertime. Usually as soon as I finish work, I like to get out in the garden to read something. I have a wood fire in my living room so it can be nice to curl up in the evening and read a bit of a book there too.

How do you read?

I went through a stage of reading on my kindle until I filled my kindle up, but I actually really like the feel and smell of a real book, so I tend to read more physically. If I’m really into a book I can’t stop reading it. I need to read it until it’s finished. So that might mean I read constantly for two days if I have time, but that can be hard when you have a seven-year-old running around. I find if I leave a book for too long, I get a bit lost and I might move onto something else and forget about it, so I like to read in one hit.

I like an easy read that I can just get completely lost in. There are some books that I just cannot get into though, and I’ll just stop and move onto another book if I’m not enjoying it. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien is one that I keep trying but I just can’t get through. I love Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit,but I get about 5 pages into The Silmarillion and just can’t go further. But I will never get rid of a book, I will always keep it in case I want to come back to it another time because it might not be that I will never like that book, it might just be the way I’m feeling on that day or that I’m just not into that genre at the moment.

Books are quite precious to me, I would never fold a page over or leave a book open and face down to save a page either. I have a few books that are really special and they sit in their dust jackets on my shelf to keep them safe.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’ve just finished Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series which I re-read all the time, especially in the summer. They’re just nice books to return to because I can get through one of them in a couple of days and I love to just get lost in that magical world.

Reading patterns

Fantasy is a big love of mine and I really enjoy authors like Tolkien and Pratchett, but I also love a bit of Scandi-noir. They’re crime novels that tend to follow the police trying to solve a puzzling case and I love the twists and turns, but they can be a bit darker. I think because they’re set in cities covered with snow, the crimes feel so far removed from here and I find them easier to read about. Samuel Bjork’s novels are some of my favourites but those are as dark as I can go with reading now. I used to be really into horror writing, I loved Stephen King and James Herbert, but I can’t read them at all these days. I used to love the Point Horror book series when I was growing up and R.L. Stine was my absolute favourite Point Horror writer but I think as I get older I prefer reading books that leave me with a nice feeling at the end.

First love, best loves

I have older siblings and a lot of what I read came from them. They had this lovely bookcase filled with some really old-fashioned books, like Swallows and Amazons and Enid Blyton and other books that can be quite outdated now. But I loved these stories about children going out into the countryside and having adventures. I think that’s probably why I do what I do now. As I got older, I began getting into the Point Horror books, I did enjoy them them but it was what everyone was reading at the time. What really stands out in my memory is when my sister bought me The Hobbit. I absolutely loved it. It’s still one of my favourite books and I go back and re-read it constantly. It was one of the first more adult books that I had ever been given. The writing was so immersive, I really felt like I was going to Middle Earth.

A series of books that I really love is by Monica Dickens, the series starts with The House at World’s End. It’s about this group of siblings who get sent away to live on a farm on their own and end up looking after all the stray animals in the area. They’re just such nice books, there’s nothing horrible in them, just very sweet escapism.

I also spend a lot of time looking through ID guides as part of my job and they can be really interesting. One that I absolutely love is called The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, the pictures in it are all hand drawn. It shows plants and animals all throughout the seasons and it’s just beautiful. Another brilliant one is Janet Marsh’s Nature Diary which is all about the Itchen Valley and the nature you can find throughout it. They’re both brilliant because even though they’re really old, it’s still plants and animals that we recognise. For anyone who wants to get out and become more involved with nature I would really recommend Francis Rose’s book on wildflowers, it’s a brilliant book to get started identifying flowers and I would really recommend Joseph Cornell’s book of activities for something to do as a family too.

But my all-time favourite book is A Fly Went By from Dr Suess. It’s just a long poem. I still have the copy that was read to me as a child and I still read it to my kids. Our oldest kids have children of their own now and we bought the book for them to read to their children as well.

Overlooked delights

I think adults should read more children’s books. They’re just simple pleasures with nothing bad happening. I like the positivity in life, and I think children’s books show us that. One I really enjoyed recently was Oi Frog! There are some fantastic kids’ books out there that can teach you stuff as well as teaching your kids stuff and I think we forget that. It reminds us of when things were easier, and I think we all need that sometimes.

Carly Harrod is a Project Manager for the Countryside Service, as part of her role she looks after the Countryside Service social media account and supports the volunteers who work throughout Hampshire. She regularly speaks on the Looking After Nature podcast. Carly was speaking with Isaac Fravashi.

Holocaust Memorial Day – Children’s information booklist

November 1, 2019March 28, 2020 Samantha - Hampshire LibrariesLeave a comment

Parents can only give good advice or put them
on the right paths, but the final forming of
a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank

Hedy’s journey: the true story of a Hungarian girl fleeing the Holocaust
by Michelle Bisson and illustrated by El Primo Ramón

It is 1941. Hedy and her family are Jewish, and the Jew-hating Nazi Party is rising. Hedy’s family is no longer safe in their home in Hungary. They decide to flee to America, but because of their circumstances, 16-year-old Hedy must make her way through Europe alone. Will luck be with her? Will she be brave? Join Hedy on her journey – where she encounters good fortune and misfortune, a kind helper and cruel soldiers, a reunion and a tragedy – and discover how Hedy is both lucky and brave.

The diary of a young girl
by Anne Frank

Sensitively edited, the abridged edition of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ gives younger readers their first introduction to the extraordinary diary of an ordinary girl who has long become a household name. There are line drawings, lots of family photographs, and an afterword to explain why the diary ends so abruptly.

Witnesses to war: eight true-life stories of Nazi persecution
by Michael Leapman

The experiences of eight children from different parts of occupied Europe during World War II are recounted here. They were forced to hide, to flee, to assume new identities, and were held prisoner in concentration camps.

Anne Frank
by Josephine Poole and illustrated by Angela Barrett

Anne Frank’s diary telling the story of her years in hiding from the Nazis has affected millions of people. But what was she like as a small girl, at home with her family and friends; at play and at school? And how did an ordinary little girl come to live such an extraordinary and tragically short life?

The missing: the true story of my family in World War II
by Michael Rosen

By turns charming, shocking, and heart-breaking, this is the true story of Michael Rosen’s search for his relatives who ‘went missing’ during the Second World War – told through prose, poetry, maps, and pictures. When Michael was growing up, stories often hung in the air about his great-uncles: one was a clock-mender and the other a dentist. They were there before the war, his dad would say, and weren’t after. Over many years, Michael tried to find out exactly what happened: he interviewed family members, scoured the Internet, pored over books and traveled to America and France. The story he uncovered was one of terrible persecution – and it has inspired his poetry for years since. Here, poems old and new are balanced against an immensely readable narrative; both an extraordinary account and a powerful tool for talking to children about the Holocaust.

Anne Frank
by Ma Isabel Sánchez Vegara and illustrated by Sveta Dorosheva

Little Anne was born in Germany to a liberal Jewish family. But when the Nazis came into power she was forced to go into hiding with her family. With innovative illustrations and extra facts at the back, this empowering series celebrates the important life stories of wonderful women of the world. From designers and artists to scientists, all of them went on to achieve incredible things, yet all of them began life as a little child with a dream.

The promise: the true story of a family in the Holocaust
by Eva Schloss and Barbara Powers

Written specially for children, this is the true story of a young Jewish girl and her brother growing up during the Second World War, caught in a world turned upside down by the Nazis.

The horror of the Holocaust
by Claire Throp

The Holocaust was one of the most horrific events in history. This book looks at how the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, persecuted, imprisoned, and killed millions of people. Find out more about Kristallnacht, the death camps, and the creation of the State of Israel.

In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank