Christchurch City Libraries Blog

Finally after several weeks, indeed months, we have reached the end of Milly Molly Mandy;  a kind of minor obsession with my 4, now 5, year old daughter.  Every story read from all the different collections on the library shelf:  The Adventures of Milly-Molly-Mandy,  Milly-Molly-Mandy Again, Further doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy,  and then because this wasn’t enough, the collections in store:  Milly-Molly-Mandy and Co, Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt.

To get a book from store just use the catalogue to put a hold on it (or ask a librarian). Holds are free for Children and Youth borrowers.

Milly-Molly-Mandy, first published 1928, is about a girl  living in a small English village at some point in the early 20th Century (in the earlier stories, her home is lit by candlelight, whilst by the last stories she has starred as an extra in a movie).  Nothing  much actually happens with scintillating titles such as  Milly-Molly-Mandy runs an errand and Milly-Molly-Mandy wears a clean frock.  But the stories had my daughter enthralled.  Indeed they have a beautiful simplicity and offer a delightful window onto a world far removed from 2009 New Zealand. They remind me a little of the Mme Remotswe in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency stories.

Milly-Molly-Mandy’s steps in each story can be traced on the  little village map at the front of each book – which my daughter delighted in doing (author Vanessa Collingridge attributes this feature of the Milly-Molly-Mandy books to inspiring her love of maps.)

Now we have reached the end though, I am both relieved and a little saddened – we will have to find something else to read together (My Naughty Little Sister, perhaps?).  I mentioned Milly-Molly-Mandy to my own Mum back in the UK in a fortnightly phone call;  “I vaguely recall you reading them to me, did you?”.

“Oh my word, I remember,  every night – for weeeeks, you made me read them – I thought there would be no end!” she replied.

Interior view of the Regent Cafe, in the Regent Theatre Building, Cathedral Square, ca. 1958.

From the Canterbury Progress League Archives

Like what you see? Complete this form to order an image. If you have any further information on any of the images, or if you would like to donate images to our collection please contact us. Want to see more? You can browse our collection here.

The House at Pooh Corner

Someone is writing a sequel to The House at Pooh Corner. AA Milne is not writing it, if he were, it would probably be more lucrative for him to write a book called “How I Lived to be 127″.

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why do people think it is a good idea to write new additions to books and series that are loved, read and re-read by millions? It’s not just Winnie the Pooh: Peter Pan, Anne of Green Gables, Gone with the Wind and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy have all suffered the ignomy of some lesser author deciding that they are the ones to take up the mantle and create new books that (I suppose) they fondly imagine will take pride of place next to titles in the original canon, but I can’t think of a time that has been the case. Maybe…maybe, it is OK when the true author had died before completing a series (Robert Jordan, I’m looking at you!)But really – is this ever a good idea?!?

I dread the day that libraries no longer house books, only rows and rows of computers and probably very few librarians (or information professionals if you like to use the technical term).  I love coming into the library to see row after row of books that I haven’t yet discovered, friends that I haven’t been introduced to.  However, I read with horror that this has actually happened at Cushing Academy in New England.

The Boston Globe reported that school’s governing board decided this year that they no longer needed a traditional library and so discarded their collection of more than 20,000 books in favour of a digital “learning centre” costing $500,000.   In place of the book shelves, they are spending $42,000 on three large flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet and $20,000 on special laptop-friendly study spaces. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.  One irate librarian commenting on the plans suggested that the students may leave the school lacking print literacy, but at least they would be ‘discerning consumers of the perfect cappuccino.’  One thing that I couldn’t quite understand was that they weren’t just getting rid of the non-fiction material to make space for the ICT options, but also the thousands of fiction titles that were apparently not getting read. 

I think that the school’s principal has a somewhat warped view of books.  He says, “When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books” and suggests that by getting rid of the books the school is “not discouraging students from reading.”  I would suggest that the principal is not a reader at all, otherwise he would know that holding a e-book reader, such as a Kindle, is nowhere near the same as holding an actual book, turning actual pages, looking at printed pictures and breathing-in that book smell.

I can’t see this type of library or “learning centre” taking over the world anytime soon, but I’m sure there will be enough book lovers to fight back when it does.

It’s September, and getting warmer! What could be nicer than a good walk round the Botanic Gardens, or on the sunny side of the street?
And if you need some music to put some Spring in your step:

• Try God help the girl – the new album by Belle and Sebastian main man Stuart Murdoch. It is the perfect soundtrack for the season - sparkling 60s style girl singer pop with a hint of a chilly undertone (like that nasty little Nor-easter).
• Listen to Fujiya and Miyagi - wonderful walking music, it thrums along with a deep and resonant vocal and music that’s a bit quirky. The track Knickerbocker has an endless refrain of “vanilla strawberry knickbocker glory”, what’s Spring without an ice-cream treat?
• Roxy Music – there was a doco on Prime a few weeks ago, and it felt like every song mentioned brought a gasp. Do the Strand (there’s a stonking cover version of this  by Scissor Sisters on War Child presents Heroes). Same old scene. Avalon.

What music says Spring to you?

Some people love them and some people hate them.  I’m definitely in the first group.  I’ve grown up with Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Wizard of Oz and, thanks to my girlfriend I now know the wonders of other great Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals such as Oklahoma and Carousel.  I love them because they’re great stories with some very memorable tunes thrown in to liven it all up.  On Friday night I went to the Broadway Broads concert that the Christchurch Symphony presented, featuring the amazing voices of Naomi Ferguson and Ali Harper, among others.  They sung some fantastic renditions of songs from Broadway musicals, including I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables, Somewhere Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, and The Worst Pies in London from Sweeney Todd.  I was smiling the whole way through because I knew most of the songs and was very tempted to sing along myself. 

My top five are:

1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

2. Mary Poppins

3. Annie

4. Bugsy Malone

5. Oklahoma

Do you have a favourite musical or do you absolutely loathe them?

Next week is Adult Learners’ Week and here’s some Technology Tasters to try. Come along  and learn some new skills, then practice them. Topics will include:

• Blogging
• Online book clubs
• Social networking
• Web searches
• Photostory
• Digital scrapbooking
• Buying and selling online

Timetable for Aug-Dec 2009: South Learning Centre – Wednesdays 3:30pm – 4:45pm, Fridays 1:00pm – 2:15pm
Central Library – Tuesdays 10:00am – 12:00pm, Tuesdays 1:00pm – 3:00pm.

Check out Technology Tasters and sign yourself up to a class that suits your needs.

I’m in the midst of an obsession.. with a fictional 73 year old Laotian, the star of Colin Cotterill’s mystery series set in post-1975 revolution Laos. Dr Siri Paiboun is the national coroner, kind but cynical, dedicated but often disillusioned. With no budget or lab equipment and no previous experience either in forensics or detecting, Siri and his loyal assistants Nurse Dtui (Fatty) and Mr Geung have prevailed in a number of tricky cases featuring murderous evil spirits, corrupt Communist officials and a virgin-slaying serial killer. 

These titles have been marketed in America as being in a similar vein to Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana based Mma Ramotswe novels. Like Smith, Cotterill’s tone is humorous and his characters warm and engaging; Siri however is clearer eyed than Precious Ramotswe. He recognises the deficiencies in the new Laos and being a natural-born rebel and risk-taker he delights in subverting the system. These titles are also less static; Siri and his cronies spend lots of time bouncing about in rustbucket trucks and death-trap motorbikes on the sub-standard roads of Laos tracking down dirty, rotten criminal-types.

Now on title six in this series, The merry misogynist, Cotterill’s book jacket author photos have also been an evolving delight. The Coroner’s lunch featured Cotterill in what look like Thai silk pjs and a highly dubious moustache. The tashe remained in varied forms through the next few titles but his latest photo shows him clean shaven and clad in non-silky garments…whew. Rubbish author photos aside, these novels are a delight. Fast and funny, and with a novel locale they are well worth a read.

Bloggers, readers, followers, commenters, observers, authors, poets – Thanks to you all for playing your part.
Thanks for helping the Christchurch City Libraries blog to the milestone of post number one thousand!

And coincidentally enough, it’s about that most celebratory of subjects – FOOD.

Richard Till, Christchurch cooking whiz, is the Alison Holst of the noughties. He’s got the Kiwi Kitchen series (and associated books), a column in the Sunday Star-Times, and some distinctive food focused tv ads. He did a nifty segment on TV3 about retro bakeware. Oh, and he was a popular presenter of a session at the Central Library as part of our 150th celebrations.

I was pleased to read an article in Beattie’s Book Blog (essential reading for anyone into books) -about Till’s new cookbook called Make it easy which is coming out next month (October). Richard Till:

presents novice cooks with a collection of recipes that can form the basis of an easy repertoire. Each dish has step-by-step colour photographs showing the ingredients and equipment required plus key stages of preparation.

Another cookbook looming deliciously on the horizon is Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck Cookbook. I first discovered Heston via his food column in the wonderful Sunday Times Style .

This book is touted as “the most desirable restaurant book ever published, now in a smaller format edition”. This is the chef who had snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream on the menu, and The Fat Duck has twice been voted the Best Restaurant in the World by a peer group of top chefs.

For more cooking inspiration, see:

• our previous posts on cookbooks
•  cookery books at Christchurch City Libraries

A new book has arrived on our shelves, with the tongue-twisting title Wirtschaftswunder. It’s a documentary photo book published by Taschen about the ‘economic miracle’ that took place in West Germany after the World War II, covering everything from street scenes to posters, factories, farms, doctor’s offices – everything.

It got me thinking about some of the stories we don’t tend to hear or read in our media or our daily web crawl. With the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II all over our news, it doesn’t hurt to walk in some other people’s shoes, so I hunted down a couple of examples.

German newspaper Der Spiegel has a range of articles, features and photographs on its website, which give an insight into contemporary thoughts about the war. The Voice of Russia also commemorates what Russians know as the Great Patriotic War on its pages written in 2000.There are also some stunning photos of the Russian experience in the online Borodulin Collection. And of course NZHistory.net has its usual high standard of coverage of the New Zealand experience.

We have a lot to be thankful for in this country – the shoe could so easily have been on a different foot.