Celebrating Book Week 2014: Connect with Reading

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Entering the literary garden of delights!

Student comment: "I saw the Frog Prince and his golden ball in a bowl,
but I think that is the same bowl Chook used last year when
he was being an astronaut!"

Today, the students at my school had their first experiences in our newly built school library. I've spent three weeks unpacking the book stock (from long-term storage) and decorating with new and nostalgic elements. The students were full of questions, but I used Circle Time to maximise and equalise all the the talking and listening. It was a great day. The looks on their faces, as they explored (hands free) all the new nooks and crannies made all the planning and hard work worth while.


Our historic school milk bottles are now enshrined in a shadow box.

The quote from a framing store, to have the bottles placed into a customised shadow box was $200 but I did it for about $40, thanks to parts bought from Spotlight. The inside text reads: Penrith Public School’s library stands on the site of a portable library building, and before that a previous portable building. In 2010, workmen excavating the foundations found these "school milk" bottles buried deep in the rubble. One is embossed "1/3 PINT PASTEURISED MILK". See the original blog entry of our archeological find HERE.

48 more photos of display elements ready for today's opening are HERE!

Royal Easter Show 2010

Photo of the day!

Preserving the Aenar

I've been looking around, hoping to find something that would serve as a base onto which to mount the the "Star Trek: Enterprise" Aenar Andorian antennae I recently bought, and that would raise the height a bit and also fit snugly into the glass dome, but perhaps not an airtight or non-removable seal. Originally, this glass dome (bought from a second hand shop) would have stood on a wooden base, or maybe be fitted with a cork wedge. Everything came together yesterday!

Okay, I've been looking around, hoping to find something that would serve as a base to onto which to mount

Had they been regular blue Andorian antennae, I would have possibly pinned the antennae to some white fur fabric but, being the very pale Aenar antennae, that wouldn't have provided enough contrast.

A few days ago, I was walking home and found a blue plastic lid from a spray can of enamel paint, perhaps abandoned by a local graffiti artist, in the street. I realised that it would provide a firm base, good height, contrasting colour and probably an almost-snug fit. Then I bought some self-adhesive foam lettering and spelled out "AENAR" around the base. I affixed the antennae to the flat surface of the lid with just a small amount of Liquid Nails, and slowly slid the dome over the top, ensuring the antennae touched neither each other nor the inside of the glass dome. There is a small amount of air flow between the raised lettering. Nothing can fall out if a visitor picks up the dome - and I can look out for any signs of premature crumbling. The latex masks from ST:TMP, sold by "It's a Wrap!", were in surprisingly good shape for having been made in 1978 and stored for several decades at Paramount. If my 2005-vintage antennae last me 40 years, I'll be 91 and perhaps ready to sell them on eBay.



I hope I've done it all correctly. I wasn't too keen on attempting to apply special protective resin coatings, or similar, I've heard about, since it may have spoiled the "screen-used" appearance of the antennae.

The pics I took outdoors today have turned out with a yellowish tinge, but the antennae are more of a pale powder blue.


(As advertised.)

On show

Science fiction media fan, John Tipper, set up this
great display at Penrith Public Library this week!

George keeps us postered!

Complimentary poster for "Gamer's quest" by George Ivanoff. George is a friend from my old "Star Trek" days who's been selling some professional kid lit lately! Thanks George! The students will love the posters and will pester me to get the book(s).

Pay back

On temporary display at Sydney's Central Station (before it moves off to the NSW Rail Heritage Centre at Thirlmere), here is the last surviving example of a recently-restored 1936 "Pay Bus". It was built at Smith & Waddington's, Camperdown (where my paternal grandfather once served his apprenticeship), and delivered fortnightly salaries to railway employees and track maintenance gangs.

Pop goes the displays!

Safari print balloons in our school library for Book Week. The theme this year is "Book Safari". I found these balloons earlier this year at a party shop in Melbourne, and was concerned that when the big week came I'd either forget all about them, or wouldn't be able to find them.

On display!

Overhead shot of new growth from my
Silver Lady blechnum fern. 23 August 2009.


Great title for an upcoming movie! 24 August 2009.

Last week's photo roundup

Still life. 16 June 2009.


Jack vanishing under the bed, just before midnight.
In a few minutes, after "lights out", he'll be
sneaking under the doona. 17 June 2009.


Window display in Sydney's CBD, celebrating 60 years
of Onitsuka Tiger sneakers. 18 June 2009.


Miniature glitter lamp in bathroom. 19 June 2009.


Grass bunny in a bowl. 20 June 2009.

What a difference a skull makes

RL Stine's old "Goosebumps" series of light, punny, horror fiction is having a major resurgence in our school library at the moment.

I was remembering back to my own primary schooling in the 60s. I had a great rapport with my inspirational teacher-librarian, Janette McKenny (later Janette Mercer when she married my equally-inspirational Year 4 teacher, years after they left the school). One day, Mrs McKenny decided that we needed to revamp the "Ghost Stories" section of the library, and several of us were elected to create a papier-mache skull, that would act as a scary bookend for the section of old wooden shelves (which had been lined with black crepe paper and a sign made out of spooky letters). We spent several hours tearing up newspaper and soaking it in a garbage can of water, but none of us could remember what held wet papier-mache together as it started to dry.

Mrs McKenny remember that papier-mache needed starch, and bought a box of the stuff on her way to school. We scampered off to the storeroom and sprinkled in the powder. Again, the papier-mache refused to clump together. Imagine our horror when Mrs McKenny asked, "Are you ready for me to boil up the starch?"

Luckily, we found another box of starch in the art store room and a quantity was boiled up, the papier-mache was drained and we began to create our skull. The paper was so sodden, it was essentially impossible to get it to hold its shape, even with the addition of thick, warm, boiled starch. After school, Mrs McKenny drove me home with it, and one of the boys who'd been part of the team at school came over to help me have another go at moulding it. I forfeited a "Noddy" beachball from the toy box and we constructed the skull around it. My mother then dutifully took the board holding the model in and out of the sun every day - for about two weeks? - until the papier-mache had hardened. It never needed painting, the newspaper pulp having taken on a suitable, consistent, grey colour from its many hours soaking in the water.

The skull sat in pride of place in the library at Arncliffe Public School for many years after I departed for high school. Gosh - maybe it's still there?

I was pondering this old anecdote the other day as I passed a local fancy dress shop and, when I saw the skull (pictured above), I realised how perfectly it would dress up our sometimes-popular "Goosebumps" shelf. $13 for a lightweight, lifelike, plastic skull seemed like a great investment - just so long as I didn't have to endure the weeks of waiting for overly-sodden, overly-starched, papier-mache to harden!

And the effect? "Goosebumps" books are once again flavour of the month with our students, and have been flying off the shelf all month. Several of the students borrowing them are saying, "This is my first time borrowing this year!" and "My first ever chapter book!". Maybe I should soon try moving them on to a few other spooky authors and titles now that they're hooked by the reading bug? But at the moment, apparently, "'Goosebumps' rulez!"