More Classic Rhymes for Kiwi Kids

It’s mid-December. That means there’s only a few more days before school breaks up, and Kiwi families start getting together to celebrate the holidays and ring in the New Year. Whether you spend Christmas holidays camping out in the bush or at the beach, meeting up with the whānau at the bach, or just hanging out at home playing backyard cricket or basketball, there are some things that just scream ‘Kiwi summer holidays!’

Heading over to the West Coast? Watch out for the tricky kea – they might try and attack your car! Going to stay at the bach in the country? Remember to check for daddy long legs in the outhouse! Taking the whānau to the beach for a picnic? Those seagulls will try and snatch your kai, so keep a good eye on your picnic basket!

It is these Kiwi classics that Peter Millett and Scott Tulloch draw on in their new book, More Classic Rhymes for Kiwi Kids (Bateman Publishing) where well-known rhymes like ‘I’m a little teapot’, ‘Old McDonald had a farm’, and ‘Wee Willie Winky’ get given a Kiwi twist. There are sheep, kiwi, and huhu grubs galore in this book, and because the pictures show typical everyday scenes, they are a great starting point for talking to children about family holidays you have taken together, sports you used to play when you were little, and about that squiggly, squirmy huhu grub you ate that one time when you were camping.

If you have whānau members coming from overseas, borrowing More Classic Rhymes for Kiwi Kids will introduce them to a side of New Zealand they might not get a chance to see. If you live here in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is a fun book to read and see characters just like you – playing rugby, mountain biking, and camping in the rain.

This book has something for everyone, and make sure to check out Classic Rhymes for Kiwi Kids for even more Kiwi nursery rhymes.

FAB FESTA – My five picks for FESTA 2018

We love FESTA! This Labour weekend “vibrant biennial celebration of urban creativity and community” is one of Ōtautahi’s most cool and unique events. It’s food for the mind, eyes, and soul. That is particularly apt in 2018 as FESTA gets foody – FESTA 2018 is all about architecture, design – and food. Contribute to the Pledgeme FESTA2018 by midday today (Thursday 27 September) and you’ll help the traditional Saturday evening mega-event street party FEASTA! be the best yet.

There are more than 55 events planned for FESTA 2018, here are some of my picks:

FEASTA

The big FREE street party is on Saturday 20 October from 5 to 11pm. It’s a FESTA tradition to activate different parts of the city, and this time Mollett Street (which runs between Colombo Street and Durham Street South) is the place to be.

There will be the stunning installations we’ve come to love at the FESTA party. The 2018 works have been created by more than 130 design and architecture students from across Australia and New Zealand, as well as NZIA and NZILA Canterbury branch members, in collaboration with Creative Director Barnaby Bennett. There will be loads of whānau fun, music, performances, art, markets, and plenty of yummy delights. One of the excellent initiatives on the night is Kono for Kai: 100 hand woven harakeke kono (small food baskets) filled with native plant seedlings and seeds will be available to the public in exchange for a koha of kai (non-perishable goods only please). All koha received will be gifted to a community group for distribution to those in need in the community. Read all about it.

FESTA at Tūranga

Ka rawe! Your new central library Tūranga will be open when FESTA is on, and it is the venue for:

• Storytimes at Tūranga Saturday 20 October, 10.30am–12pm FREE
• Food and the City Symposium with Freerange Press Sunday 21 October, 12.30pm to 4.30pm (3 sessions with breaks in between) FREE

Produce a City

Saturday 20 October and Sunday 21 October 1 to 4pm; Monday 22 October (Labour Day), 10am to 1pm at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Pop in to this drop-in session and make a cityscape out of food! Use the colourful clay provided to sculpt a house or a building in the shape of fruit and vegetables and add it to the map. Suitable for children aged 7+. FREE

Last Call: Christchurch’s Drinking and Dining Past

Sunday 21 October 6pm to 7.30pm. Meet at Victoria Square. FREE.
Take a trip back in time and explore our culinary past. Join Nik Mavromatis as he hosts a guided walking tour around central Christchurch, starting with Ōtautahi’s oldest market square. Nik then takes you to former hospitality sites and reminisces over the cafes, bars and restaurants that were previously part of the fabric of our city.

This is a mere taster, visit the FESTA 2018 to explore all the events on offer.

FESTA information

• FESTA website
• Like FESTA on Facebook
• Subscribe to FESTA events on Facebook
• Follow FESTA on Twitter
• Follow FESTA on Instagram
• See our photos of FESTAs gone by

How you can help

Contribute to the Pledgeme FESTA2018 by midnight tonight Thursday 27 September.

Take a look back at the awesomeness of FESTA

FESTA 2016 – Lean Means

FESTA 2014 – CityUps

FESTA 2013 – Canterbury Tales

FESTA 2012 – LuxCity

Read our 2016 interview with FESTA director Jessica Halliday: Imagining a different Christchurch – Jessica Halliday and FESTA 2016

Cool stuff from the Selectors: Feeding frenzy

Eating. It’s the most natural thing in the world yet it is becoming increasingly loaded with emotion and so-called science. This can leave the most sensible of us awash in recipes and diet plans.

To add to the dilemma of what to eat as adults, we are now increasingly concentrating on what to feed our children. Now in “my day” (yes I know that sounds dreadful but I can’t think of any other way to put it) we blended up a bit of pumpkin, threw in some cheese ( if we had any),  pureed apple or banana and that was that. Did this lead to lack of vitamins, macro-nutrients, poor eating habits and an addiction to sugar? I really don’t know… My children seem reasonably healthy, but with the addition of twins to our family I am aware that there is much discussion, and a certain amount of anxiety amongst new parents when faced with the endless opinions and debate around food.

So here are some new titles that will either help or hinder the feeding process!

Little Foodie: recipes for babies and toddlers with taste

Michele Olivier describes herself as a complete control freak and I have to agree with her. The book emanates from a blog she created when feeding her daughter Ellie and is full of organic, fresh, tasty meals. She suggests all you “need is a couple of hours each month  and a passion to give your baby the best”.  Good luck with that.

Baby-led Feeding

This book is very attractive with colour pictures accompanying  each recipe and plenty of interesting ideas for first food. I struggled a bit with the cost factor of strawberry and goat cheese spread, simple poached salmon (I can’t even afford this for the adults in my family let alone the children) and tomato fennel soup, but that aside there are some good ideas in here for all the family.

Baby Food Matters: what science says about how to give your child healthy eating habits for life

For those of you who are serious about this baby feeding business!  Packed full of ideas including the blindingly obvious “… don’t pressure him to eat past the point at which he feels full” or “limit unhealthy foods and snacks” to in-depth information and charts for average daily energy requirements in the first year of life, recommendations for the required amount of vitamin D, and how to cope with fussy eaters. There are no pretty pictures in this book!

Pet Cookbook: Easy everyday recipes for happy healthy pets

Now that we are educated on how to feed our children we can turn our attention to the family pet with the Pet Cookbook: Easy everyday recipes for happy healthy pets. Treat them to watermelon pupsicles, a tasty salmon log, pupcakes, chicken scramble (apparently chickens love this even though they are eating their own) and a super smoothy.  Heck, use these recipes yourself – they look great!

Philippine Independence Day, 12 June

Philippine independence day marks the anniversary of the nation’s independence from Spanish rule on June 12 1898. Changed from being on the 4th of July (independence was officially granted to the Philippines by the US on this date in 1946, plus the date was thought to fit in neatly with the States own independence day), this year marks the 54th anniversary of the Philippines ’12th of June’ independence day, and the 120th anniversary of its independence day generally. While we don’t have an option in NZ  to mark this as a public holiday, or to have a parade as impressive as the one that will take place in Manila, there are still some things you can do to commemorate this day. Here are our top five options:

Talk in Tagalog: If you can manage this you will be doing a lot better than me (even though I am half Filipino the only Tagalog words I’m familiar with are those associated with food, a sad indictment on my life incidentally). Happily the library has plenty of resources to help you manage this, including Mango languages, a fantastic language learning website (and app) available 24/7 on our website. Mango offers a course on Tagalog (as well as 60 other languages), and as Tagalog’s standardized form is one of the two official languages of the Philippines (the other is English) Mango could be a great starting point.
There are also some great books available in our libraries to help you learn some Filipino, for both youth and adult learners.

Read all about it: The Philippines has an extraordinary history spanning from pre 15th century barangays (settlements), to three hundred years as a Spanish colony, through American occupation, to its status as a Republic. It has a rich culture that is influenced by both East and West, its Spanish influence clearly evident in the archipelago’s sumptuous feasts, parades, and prevalent Catholicism, and its Chinese influence clearly seen in some of the counties favorite dishes (think rice cakes and noodles), and the supreme importance of family. Our libraries have some fantastic books available to help you learn more about the Philippines fascinating history and culture.

Cook Philippine style: A mere mention of pork adobe will make most Filipino weak at the knees (I would be one of the unashamed statistic aforementioned). Why not try your hand at one of the Philippines’ truly delicious dishes? The library has some cookbooks at hand to help you – some in Tagalog and some in English.

Karaoke: Karaoke has become one of those integral parts of Philippine culture, but if you’re not feeling up for singing there are plenty of pros around to listen to. Our libraries have some great Filipino CDs you can borrow which could inspire you to great karaoke success (or excuse you from performing, which in my case would be the same thing).

Phillipines book display at Central Library Peterborough

Borrow a Tagalog book: Did you know that we now have a Tagalog collection at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre? And Central Library Peterborough is also hosting some books from the collection (photo above) this month to celebrate Philippine independence day. If neither of these libraries are close to you, never fear, there are Tagalog eBooks you can borrow from home through one of the libraries ebook platforms, Overdrive.
If you’re not feeling like a book today, there is also a great selection of Tagalog eMagazines and newspapers available through PressReader, one of Christchurch City Libraries’ eMagazine and newspaper platforms.

Podcast – Food waste

Christchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States. Added to this immense environmental impact is the social impact: How much food is thrown away that could be eaten?

Join our guests as they share statistics and information about the various ways in which they work to repurpose food waste and save it from landfill.

Guests:

• Jenny Marshall, Love Food Hate Waste
• Amanda Chapman, Amanda in Waste-Free Land
• Torie Madison, Revival Food Company
• John Milligan, City Harvest Food Rescue organisation
• Trudy Burrows, New Brighton community fridge and pantry

Transcript – Food waste

Find out more in our collection

• Find titles on food conservation
• Find titles on cooking leftovers
• Find titles on food waste prevention
• Find articles about reducing food waste (access with your library card & password / PIN)

More about Speak up – Kōrerotia

• Speak up – Kōrerotia on Facebook
• Contact the host of the show via speakupkorerotia@gmail.com.

The show is also available on the following platforms:

• Plains FM website
• SoundCloud
• iTunes

eMagazines for your weekend – RBDigital Magazines

Here are a dozen fresh eMagazines hot off the press from RBDigital Magazines. Perfect for a spot of weekend reading – on your laptop, desktop, phone, tablet …

1. British Vogue (includes great interview with Salman Rushdie – apparently he was great buddies with Carrie Fisher)
2. Vanity Fair
3. New Zealand Listener
4. Woman’s Day
5. Hello!
6. Grazia
7. Nadia
8. All about history
9. All about space
10. The Economist [U.S. edition]
11. Home
12. F1 Racing

What would you like to learn and do in Tūranga (New Central Library)? Have your say!

Kia ora. We need your input to help plan exciting programmes at Tūranga. Tell us the programmes you would be most interested in attending and what times would suit you best. This survey will take about 5 minutes to complete.

Have your say

This consultation runs from Friday 6 April to Sunday 6 May 2018.

About Tūranga

Due for completion later this year, Tūranga will occupy a prominent site on the corner of Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square.

Find out more:

• View webcam photos of site and photos of construction
• Watch time lapse video of Tūranga construction.

Tūranga will be nearly 10,000 square metres in size, making it the largest public library in the South Island. It is part of a network of 19 community libraries, as well as a mobile library and a digital library. In 2017, the Christchurch City Libraries network hosted 3.7 million visits and issued almost 4.5 million items.

Five Easter feast ideas

It’s always seemed strange to me, to use lots of pastel colours with baby chicks and bunnies at Easter, because for us it is a turning point in our year, when weather gets cooler and we know we’re in for the long haul of winter.

Here’s a few ideas to celebrate Easter minus the pastel. Let’s usher in the cosiness of Winter with a delicious feast.

1) Hygge feast!

Easter is in the middle of our daylight savings’ transition – so it’s time to remind ourselves that the cold dark to come can be good. It’s time for soup, candles, hot chocolate and all the cosiness that is the Danish word hygge.

Have a look at this eBook Scandinavian Comfort Food, download the Libby by Overdrive app on to your device, log in with your library card details and you can read this without even stepping outside your house!

2) Mezze feast

Grab some lamb, flatbreads and hummus to have an ancient traditional Easter feast. This works really well if you’re doing a feast with friends or whānau as it’s easy for people to bring something to contribute. (Flatbread, nuts, hummus, olives, wine… all easy stuff to pick up on the way to an event)

Yotam Ottolenghi is the authority on the mezze / Jewish inspired feast. Once you’ve had a read of his famous book Jerusalem, you’ll be wanting to make hummus galore and stuff every vegetable.

Try also: Snackistan

3) Easter Fiesta

Tacos! Nachos! Avocados! You can’t go wrong with a bit of Mexican food. It’s also great because people can add bits of whatever they like to their plate, that hot sauce doesn’t have to be for everyone – but man, it can warm you up!

Looking for Mariachi vibe music to go with your food? Check out Border crossings via Smithsonian Global Sound one of our music eResources. Just log in with your library card details and stream music for free!

4) Chocolate!

Easter and chocolate go hand-in-hand. Want more chocolate than just a multitude of Easter eggs? Try Indulgent Cakes for some amazing cakes:

Also, for some cosy vintage feels, try streaming Duke Ellington via Access Video (another sweet eResource) – log in with your library card details to view. Look for the song ‘Hot Chocolate’ to help you get in the literal swing of Easter.

5) Eggs

Go classic Easter and have an egg feast! Decorate some eggs, have an egg hunt, eat chocolate eggs or even simple scrambled or fried eggs on toast would be easy and on theme. Egg is a great book for egg recipes:

And for a great egg book to read your kiddies, try Scrambled Eggs Super!

The Sunday Night Book is just all-round fabulous, but happens to have some great egg recipes in it too.

Happy Easter and happy eating!

eMagazines for your weekend – RBDigital Magazines

Here is a baker’s dozen of titles hot off the press from RBDigital Magazines. Perfect for a spot of weekend reading – on your laptop, desktop, phone, tablet …:

 

1. Apple Magazine
2. Vanity Fair
3. Big League
4. Evo
5. Bon Appetit
6. British Vogue
7. New Zealand Listener
8. Woman’s Day
9. North and South
10. Q
11. Hello!
12. Grazia
13. Philosophy now

Canterbury Japan Day 2018

Canterbury Japan Day is an annual event organised by The Japanese Society of Canterbury with the aim of sharing authentic Japanese culture with Cantabrians. In 2018 it will take place from 9.30am to 4.30pm on Sunday 4 March at Riccarton Park, 165 Racecourse Road.

The theme this year is the Japanese Summer. The venue will be filled with decorations relating to Tanabata – The Summer Star Festival. There will be stalls, indoor events, an anime cosplay cafe and outdoor events.

• Like Canterbury Japan Day on Facebook to find out more.
• Subscribe to the Canterbury Japan Day 2018 Facebook event.
• Visit our page on Canterbury Japan Day to explore our Japanese resources.

• Find out more about our Japanese resources in our page on Canterbury Japan Day.
• Find Japanese comics and anime in the library collection.

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The history of Canterbury Japan Day

The inaugural Canterbury Japan Day was held on 11 March 2012 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Japanese Society of Canterbury and the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and Japan. It also marked the anniversary of the 2011 East Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Canterbury Japan Day, Flickr CCL-2012-03-11-CanterburyJapanDay-March-2012 DSC_0569.JPG