Pocket money ready! It’s children’s book sale time.

The school holidays can be a “challenging” time for parents as we all know. How best to keep the little tikes entertained?

As usual Christchurch City Libraries is offering a range of holiday programmes and Kidsfest activities but we’ve also got a book sale this week that might offer up some gems to keep your kids occupied when the weather packs in.

Our Children’s book sale is on Thursday and Friday in the Boardroom at Fendalton Library and a range of reading material for youngsters will be on offer for the bargain, low price of $1 per item.

Fiction, non-fiction, picture and board books as well as young adult titles will be available so gather up that pocket money and grab a bargain!

Recent necrology, June 2015

Some well known people who have died recently

• Samuel Barclay Charters, 1929-2015
  Historian and producer who helped to kickstart the revival of the blues

• Helen Bascand, 1929-2015
  Christchurch poet

• Ornette Coleman, 1930-2015
  The most intellectual of jazz musicians, the godfather of free jazz

• Jerry Collins, 1980-2015
  Professional NZ Rugby Union player

• Ronnie Gilbert, 1926-2015
  Founder member of The Weavers who was known for her rich contralto voice

• D. N. Hawkins, 1927-2015
  Rangiora historian and author

• James Horner, 1953-2015
  Film composer who won two Oscars for Titanic and provided soundtracks for films as diverse as Braveheart and Richard Eyre’s Iris

• Richard Johnson, 1927-2015
  Dashing actor who turned down James Bond and became a stalwart of the RSC, film and television

• James Last, 1929-2015
  German-born composer and big band leader known for his ‘happy music’

• Christopher Lee, 1922-2015
  Actor of aristocratic bearing who was closely identified with the role of Dracula and played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings

• Graham Lord, 1943-2015
  Journalist and biographer who shook up the world of books with a prize for ‘readable’ fiction that was the most lucrative of its day

• Patrick Macnee, 1922-2015
  Actor who brought Etonian nonchalance and jaunty eccentricity to the part of Steed in The Avengers

• Ron Moody, 1924-2015
  Gifted actor celebrated for his tragic-comic performance as Fagin in Lionel Bart’s Oliver

• Marguerite Patten, 1915-2015
  Prolific food writer and broadcaster

• Barbara Reynolds, 1914-2015
  Dante scholar who was better known as the biographer of Dorothy L. Sayers

• Jean Ritchie, 1922-2015
  Musician who introduced the mountain dulcimer to the wider world and traced the Appalachian ballads of her youth to Britain

• James Salter, 1925-2015
  Fighter pilot turned novelist whose precisely crafted books explored war, sexual desire and heartbreak

• Gunther Schuller, 1925-2015
  Composer and conductor who won a Pulitzer Prize, played with Miles Davis and wrote two books on jazz

• Carole Seymour-Jones, 1943-2015
  Writer who explored the love lives of Vivienne Eliot and Simone de Beauvoir

• Ernest Tomlinson, 1924-2015
  Composer and conductor, doyen of the light orchestral world

• Peter Williams, 1934-2015
  Eminent New Zealand lawyer

Te Kupu o te Wiki – The Word of the Week

Kia ora. To celebrate Te Reo Māori we are publishing weekly kupu (words).

Whakataukī

Ehara taku toa, he takitahi, he toa takitini.
My success should not be bestowed onto me alone, as it was not individual success but success of a collective.

This whakataukī can be said humbly when an individual is acknowledged for their contribution to a greater cause.

Kīwaha (colloquialism)

Ūana te wehi.
Mean.

Kupu (word)

whakaata
mirror

Kei hea tō whakaata?
Where is your mirror?

Watch video of someone pronouncing this kupu.

• Browse our Te Reo Māori resources.
• Previous Te Kupu o te reo Māori posts.
• Weekly kupu videos from Māori Television.

This week in Christchurch history (6 to 12 July)

6 July 1887
Heavy floods. Three young men drown in the Avon River as a result of a boating mishap.

7 July 1908
Widespread flooding in city and province.

8 July 1880
Canterbury Society of Arts formed.

The Society of Artists Gallery, corner of Armagh & Durham Streets, Christchurch [ca. 1921], CCL PhotoCD 12, IMG0045

9 July 1863
Civic tree planting begins. Part of the day’s planting was a commemorative tree, generally regarded as the beginning of the Botanic Gardens.

10 July 1922
Hagley Park and Botanic Gardens included in city boundary.

11 July 1879
Post Office building in Cathedral Square completed.

Post Office Corner, 1963, from Cathedral spire. Flickr, HW-08-FE-09

More July events in the Christchurch chronology: a timeline of Christchurch events in chronological order from pre-European times to 1989.