How to travel the world without leaving home

People will often speak of armchair travel, when they watch documentaries and movies that take them to far flung places across the globe.  I had the every same experience last weekend, but I travelled with the help of fiction.  One book was largely set in Paris and Amsterdam, while the other was set in West End, Montana just outside of Yellowstone National Park.  Very different kind of novels, but each made me feel like I had been transported to another place. While a healthy bank balance is needed to ACTUALLY travel the world, it's nice to know that we can travel anywhere we want to without spending a cent (thank you public library).

Questionable Content...

It’s the beginning of the school year, and librarians are back on board with full budgets, ready to start spending. I recently read an article which I thought I would share, as it brings up issues faced by Secondary School librarians in particular. 

School libraries, in general, have a number of restrictions placed upon them with regard to the books they choose to stock for their library.  It can depend on the values that the school wants to uphold, behaviours represented in books that are deemed inappropriate within the school and also the values of the school community as a whole, and this will include parents. Some may say this is censorship, but I don’t agree.  That’s like saying it’s censorship if you don’t allow profanity in the school yard.  There will always be limits to what school libraries have in their collections, and these limits will vary from school to school, and that’s just the way it is. 

The Debt Instalment 1: Catch the Zolt by Phillip Gwynne

First cab off the rank for 2013 is the first book in a new series called The Debt, book one is called Catch the Zolt, and the series name gives  you are fair idea of what the book might be about.

Dom has just turned 15, and on his birthday he learns about a family secret that will change his life. Dom Silvagni's Great great great great grandfather Dominic came to Australia in 1822 during the Gold Rush, he was born into the 'NDRANGHETA, which is like the mafia but not as nice. He defaulted on a loan and as a consequence all Silvagnis males, upon reaching the age of 15, must make six repayments on his debt. His father repayed the Debt, his Grandfather did not,  and the price for this was a pound of flesh, they took his leg!  Happy Birthday Dom, it's your turn to pay The Debt!

My new home

Well I think I deserved 21 whole days of rest and relaxation before I made my way into the ‘blogosphere’ once again.  After the success of my 366 book challenge last year I have decided that I can’t keep away from blogging.  I have had so many of my readers encourage me to keep going, and I am one of those people who needs to shout it from the rooftops when they have read a great book, and what better place to shout from than here.

The format the blog will take will be different from last year, my focus will be the same (Children's and Teen) but I will have no self imposed limitations this year. I will continue talk about new books, but I may revisit and share some of my all time favourites, I also hope to include adult non fiction that relates to children and reading and…really anything else that tickles my fancy, from now on it's all about books that I love, no more deadlines!

The only thing I can say with absolute certainty, is that I will NOT be reading and blogging about a book a day.  This year I hope to venture outside once in a while, and get my nose out of a book, and get back into the real world.  In saying that, I think there’s enough great stuff out there that will see me posting a number of times a week.

Here's a sneak peak at some of the titles on my reading pile that I will be sharing with you in the coming weeks.