From last week's SMH

Enigma unmasks with her final saga - an article about Lian Hearn (aka Gillian Rubinstein)

Nominate your favourite Carnegie and Greenaway book of all time

Go to the Carnegie Greenaway Website to cast your vote online

Theodore Taylor

I was saddened to her of the passing at 85 of Theodore Taylor, author of The Cay.


Obituaries:
New York Sun
LA Times
Dallas News

Literary Lunch

I had the pleasure of hearing Susan Duncan talk about her book Salvation Creek at a lunch at Pasadena on Pittwater last Friday. Susan, a former media high flier, gave up her exciting life for the peace of Pittwater after the two important men in her life died withn days of each other. Susan bares her soul as she chronicles her journey in Salvation Creek, a well written and easy to read story.

New Graeme Base Title

I note from http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2006/10/08/family/doc45256f6447b49120295636.txt that Graeme has launched a new book in the US but I have not seen it here in Australia yet.

2006 KOALA Awards

The awards were announced yesterday at KOALAs 20th birthday celebration at Taronga Zoo. The eight young people I know who attended the awards had a wonderful time and particularly enjoyed hearing from Pamela Allen and Felice Arena. They were thriled to have our library copy of Dump Bear signed by Matt Dray.

Awards List: http://www.koalansw.org.au/page/winners.html

News from across the Tasman

LIANZA Children's Book Awards announced
http://www.lianza.org.nz/news/newsroom/news1127359154.html

UK Nestlé 2006 Shortlist Announced

In the ages 9–11 category, the titles are: The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore and The Pig Who Saved the World by Paul Shipton .

In the ages 6–8 category, the titles are: Hugo Pepper by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King, illustrated by David Roberts and The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon by Mini Grey In the ages 5 and under category, the titles are: Wibbly Pig's Silly Big Bear by Mick Inkpen ,The Emperor of Absurdia by Chris Riddell and The Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton.

Go west to see some etchings

I wouldn't mind nipping over to Perth to see the exhibition of Norman Lindsay's etchings. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20570629-16947,00.html

LT06 Conference

I enjoyed the recent Sydney conference at Pymble Ladies College hosted by Commander. I particularly enjoyed the presentation by Kevin Richardson (although I had heard most of it at the AIS IT Managers Conference in June). The most useful session for me was from Paul Stewart of Whitefriars College who presented a range of practical, economical and simple tools that can be used in a range of curriculum areas. He referred us to a paper Connectivism:A Learning Theoryfor the Digital Age that is worthy reading and discussion.

The Intermittent Blogger

I'm getting caught up with Web 2.0 and have been playing with lots of tools. Ihave been tagging madly and have tagged 25,000 photos with the free download of Adobe Photoshop Album Starter a nifty tool that is very easy to use. I've created and played with a number of online products. I don't think I will use Myspace and Bebo too much. Although I find Youtube amusing my home videos won't be going there.

With my Wikipedia account I have been editing a few articles about which I have some knowledge. I have found the editing task relatively easy. I've put some photos on Flickr and have tagged all my favourite websites with Del.icio.us, which is very useful when using multiple computers.

Bloglines saves me heaps of time by providing an easy to use interface that aggregates online news, blogs, comics and newsgroups for me.