Auckland Libraries blog

Of all the challenges, this is the one that most has me wondering what the top choice will end up being. Roald Dahl is the most popular choice for now, with The Twits , The Witches , The BFG and Matilda , in that order. (If the thought just occurred to you that Hey, I could watch The BFG for Challenge number 8, "Watch a movie based on a book", may I say that yes, you could, but it does have a bit of a wait list as all new releases do. But do you know of the two other Roald Dahl adaptations which are firmly up there among the movies no child -- and few adults -- should miss: the hilarious Matilda , directed by and starring Danny DeVito, and the whimsical stop-motion James and the Giant Peach , with the wonderful Pete Postlethwaite and, please quote me, "See Miriam Margolyes and Joanna Lumley as Aunts Spiker and Sponge and die".) Enid Blyton is in next place, a generation older but having such a long career and being so prolific that it hardly matters, and let...

In the pre-broadcast entertainment era, reading out loud was an amusement as habitual as going for a coach ride - for the social strata who had leisure time and literacy skills of course. In even older times, pre-medieval, there are records of people commenting with surprise on seeing someone read silently, it was so unusual. Kafka used to read his stories aloud and laugh until the tears ran. Try reading a short story to someone your own age, or older, including much older. A friend, your auntie, your cat (yes, someone gloriously reported having done this)! Think ghost stories around the fire and try something chilling. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a time-honoured read-aloud, with its deceptively normal opening, gradual building of apprehension, culminating in a terrible reveal. Plus, plenty to talk about afterwards, as everyone wants to know what it means. Shirley Jackson claimed she herself didn't know. Or get yourself a collection of the haunting horror stories o...