Tuesday, December 20, 2005

FUNtastic Websites

For The Very Young Ones:

The Noddy site is extra full with goodies. There are a number of sections that cover a wide range of activities, including games, print outs, information on different characters and even a section for grown ups where Noddy stuff is on sale.

The section covering Noddy's friends contains information about and pictures of Tessie Bear, Mr Plod and Sly, amongst others. For every character you also get to print an activity sheet and the option to put his or her pictue as a wallpaper on your desktop.

One of my favourite sections was Play and Learn. In it you can find a number of games that not only are fun to play but which also help you to learn about maths, spelling and colours.

To go to the Noddy website click
HERE.



For The Not-So-Very-Young-Ones:

The www.show.me.uk is fabulous. The site is packed with games, resources and activities that cover a whole range of topics. You can find stuff about history, geography, science, art and many more topics. The clever thing about this site is that it acts as a portal to other websites maintained and produced by the 24-Hour Museum. The 24-Hour Museum is a gateway to the UK's museums, galleries and heritage sites.

I particularly liked the History Hunt game I accessed through the Vikings' section. Jasmine and Jamie travel through time to unravel mysteries and solve puzzles. It's a fun game and helps you to learn lots of interesting stuff as well.

To visit the site, click HERE.



For The Eldest Ones:

The website of the British Library is an awesome piece of work. In it you can look up a whole lot of information about all the books that have been published in the UK and are housed in the library. On top of this, there are a number of facilities that make the site informative and pleasant to browse at the same time.

For instance, it contains a digitised version of two copies of the famous Gutenberg Bible, the very first book ever to be published. It is known as the Gutenberg Bible because Jose Gutenberg was the person who invented the printing press and he chose the Bible as his first printing venture. Thanks to the British LIbrary's digitisation project, everybody who has access to the internet can take a look at the stupendous and meticulous work that went into publishing this book.

To access the British Library website, click HERE.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

FINALLY!!!

The much-awaited fourth instalment in the Harry Potter film series is finally out. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has hit our screens last Friday and hundreds of people have already stormed the cinemas to savor Harry's latest adventure.

Fans of the books and the films will surely lap it all up. The beginning shows us a slithering snake moving silently towards a mysterious house. Everywhere is dark and the atmosphere is terrifying. From this tense moment we move on to the roaring splendour of the Quidditch World Cup and the ensuing chaos when the Death Eaters make an appearance. The rest of the story is very faithful to the book even though entire chunks have been left out. But this was to be expected as the novel is over 600 pages long and to make a movie that includes everything is impossible. Unless it was a seven hour movie!!!

The special effects are dazzling. The dragon is awesome, as are the merpeople, the ship that travels underwater, the goblet of fire, the labyrinth. Watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is magic indeed.

All the familiar characters from the previous films are back. Apart from Harry and his gang there's also Fred and George Weasley, Professor Snape, Hagrid, Draco Malfoy and the rest. Then there are also new characters like MadEye Moody, Victor Krum and Rita Skeeter. We also get to meet the disturbing Lord Voldemort as he makes an appearance at the end of the movie.

Out of the four films, this is certainly the most spectacular and everyone should go and see it!!!

Friday, November 04, 2005

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire


Fans of Harry Potter are surely counting the days till November 18th, when the fourth instalment of the film series is going to be released.

The Story:
Harry
, now 14, is feeling very uneasy due to a series of dreams he's been having regarding two men plotting murders. Despite this, he however accepts Ron's invitation to go to the Quidditch World Cup. Strange things happen during this tournament that suggest that Voldemort's followers are plotting something.

Upon returning to Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry gets to know that the school is hosting the TriWizard Tournament, a competition between Hogwarts, Beauxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute. Harry is chosen to participate in the tournament. Not only this, but he has to cope with a new teacher who shows far too much interest in him than what is normal.

The Film:
The film is directed by Mike Newell, who is the first British director involved in a Harry Potter movie, the previous two being American (Chris Columbus, who directed The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets) and Mexican (Alfonso Cuaron, the man behind The Prisoner of Azkaban).

Daniel Radcliffe resumes his role as Harry Potter whereas Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are back as Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley respectively. The rest of the characters are all there including Sirius Black, Dumbledore, Cho Chang, Professor Snape and the rest.

Ten more days... nine... eight... and counting...


For Daniel Radcliffe's website click here.
For Emma Watson's website click here.
For Rupert Grint's website click here.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Narnia Chronicles

This December 9th will see the worldwide release of the film adaptation of one of C S Lewis’s classic tales of Narnia.

The film is called The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and it is going to be based mostly on the second book. The reason for this is simple. The first book of the series, The Magician’s Nephew, was in actual fact the sixth book that was published, way back in 1955. But the book is really a late introduction to the rest of the tales, so it has since been repositioned as book number one. The producers of the film decided to follow the original suit, and hence started filming with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

The story recounts the tale of the four Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy who, because of the German air raids over London during World War Two, are sent to live with the eccentric Professor Digory Kirke. The Professor happens to own a very strange wardrobe. One day Lucy peers into it and is transported to the snowy land of Narnia. Here she discovers that this beautiful land is in actual fact under the evil influence of Jadis the White Witch who proclaimed that it shall always be winter (but with no Christmas) in Narnia. And the story goes on...

This film is surely going to be awesome, and people who enjoyed The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter movies are sure to lap this up. Just a small aside: the film is directed by Andrew Adamson, the same fellow who did the Shrek movies!
-----Ò-----

The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005)

Directed by Andrew Adamson

Starring :
Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie
William Moseley as Peter Pevensie
Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie
Anna Popplewell as Susan Pevensie
Tilda Swinton as Jadis the White Witch
-----Ò-----

Information for this blog was taken from the following sources:

The Internet Movie Database
Narniaweb.com
The Official Website of the Movie
Into The Wardrobe : a C S Lewis Web Site

Thursday, October 20, 2005

WELCOME!!

Hi All!

Welcome to San Anton School Library’s blog!

In this blog there shall be regular updates regarding anything that happens in the library: activities, displays, exhibitions, lessons. Everything.

From time to time students approach me with stories that they would have written themselves. These stories end up on the library’s noticeboard, but as from now, they shall be featured on this blog as well, together with any drawings submitted.

The blog shall also feature important news items especially those related to the world of books. Therefore one is sure to find the hottest information regarding the latest Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia films; information about authors; the latest children’s bestsellers, and so on and so forth.

Another great thing about this blog is that whoever visits the site can leave feedback about a particular entry simply by clicking on the COMMENTS button.

Anyway. That would be enough for now.

See you!


To visit the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire website, click HERE.
For information about J K Rowling, click
HERE.
To visit the Chronicles of Narnia website, click
HERE.
For information about C S Lewis, click
HERE.