Tag Victoria Stebleva

What Not To Do In Outer Space

jillrbennett Leave a comment

What Not To Do In Outer Space
Anna Crowley Redding and Victoria Stebleva
Happy Yak

Are you ready to blast off into space?  ‘SPACE FANS. We are T-minus 30 seconds from lift off!  Get ready, there is so much to do in Outer Spaaaaaaaaaace!’ Thus begins the young narrator’s livestream of his epic trip to outer space.

Aboard the space craft too is robotic research assistant, Herschel, and ready to answer questions via the ‘live chat’ are Dr Joan Kepler and Dr Obi Lightbody. The narrator may be all set to entertain enthusiasts watching back home but the irritating tour guide seems to be endeavouring to spoil all his fun. Suppose then that you want to try floating and catching every drop of your milk with your mouth, that’s a no no! It’s way too dangerous and could short-circuit the spaceship’s electronics.
So what about opening the window to see what space smells like? Absolutely not: space will vacuum the air out of the spaceship and your lungs. And anyway, ‘space smells like burning metal.’

Additional no no’s include a space race; a snowball fight on Mars;

getting out of the spaceship and grabbing a diamond specially for your mum. It seems that you cannot do anything at all that’s fun in space. Hmm!

During the expedition questions pop up via the livestream and the docs. answer them. In this way interesting space facts are integrated into the adventure. With these awesome facts and a whole lot of laugh-out-loud moments, this book offers a wealth of learning opportunities. Curious children will love this quirky presentation.

The Awesomely Adventurous Librarians

jillrbennett 2 Comments

The Awesomely Adventurous Librarians
Donna David and Victoria Stebleva
Oxford Children’s Books

Rida’s Grandad works in Sleepy Creek Library and Rida absolutely loves to help him. She dusts shelves and finds books for all the visitors: Grandad being of the opinion that there’s ‘a perfectly perfect book for everyone’ and their job is to find it. Rida would observe the visitors, make a list of their requirements and when everyone had gone home, she’d pass the list on to Grandad. Then having slid back a large bookshelf, off he’d go to visit the Land of Books. Bedtime stories were to be found among the clouds, books about marine life required him to dive deep down in the ocean and for those about tiny animals, he’d crawl around. A good system until Arun comes to the library saying he’s eager to read Awesome Adventures at Lava Falls. Despite Grandad’s efforts to offer him other books, Arun stands his ground and Grandpa explains it was an impossible task, leaving the boy to go home feeling sad.

That night Rida recalls Grandad’s remark about there being a ‘ perfectly perfect book for everyone’ . She takes it upon herself to fulfil Arun’s request. Grabbing Grandad’s map she goes on her first visit to the Land of Books, heading to the outermost edge where the book is waiting up in a tree. Rida takes out her lasso, fastens it securely around a nearby tree and chases the book

through rapids, up a mountain and over bubbling lava pools. Just when the book is about to go up in flames Rida performs a daring rescue for which the book is very grateful. As a thank you, the awesome Adventures at Lava Falls agrees to the request Rida makes and everyone is happy at last – for a while anyway.

Featuring two very special librarians, this is a fun story about the power of books and the worlds they open up to readers, the delights of libraries and being kind. The illustrations are full of delicious details to linger over.