Reading | Western Downs Libraries

Apr, 2020

Storytime at home

By: Renee Rogers | Tags: storytime, storytime at home | Comments: 0

We miss our Storytime families! We love picking out our favourite books and anticipating how much your kids will love it too. We love singing and playing and laughing at Storytime; clapping and cheering as a baby meets a new milestone and we’re so proud when they head off to school. We love fostering a love of books- after all, that’s why we do what we do! If you miss Storytime as much as we do, check out our collection of Storytime at Home kits. All of the fun of […]

Mar, 2020

Story Box Library

By: Vanessa Ernst | Tags: | Comments: 0

Storytime at Home Free and Online Story Box Library is an engaging educational resource that inspires reading in kids of all ages, improving language and literacy skills along the way. Story Box Library was created to: Engage children with stories and voices to make personal connections develop vital language and literacy skills combat endless online searching for quality literacy resources; and get kids excited about reading and let imaginations fly! Best of all, it’s free for families via participating public libraries (that’s us)! See and hear your favourite stories come to life, […]

Mar, 2020

The benefits of listening to audiobooks are extensive…

By: Janette Quince | Tags: bell, Chinchilla Library, dalby library, Early Literacy, education, first five forever, Jandowae Library | Comments: 0

Available online for free through BorrowBox or RB Digital Audiobooks are immersive, educational, instructional, entertaining and they’re perfect for the time rich and the time poor. Audiobooks can also change the way we listen, read and learn, improving the literacy of young readers and those for whom English is a second language. There are plenty of benefits to regularly listening to audiobooks, including: Increasing reading accuracy by 52% Increasing reading speed, expanding vocabulary and improving fluency Teaching pronunciation Improving comprehension by 76%; and Increasing test scores by 21% when engaged in multi-modal learning. […]

Mar, 2020

Your Words Out West Reading List!

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: | Comments: 0

We’ve just wrapped up our very first Words Out West Readers & Writers Fest, and we had so much fun hearing from some of our favourite authors! If you’re having Words Out West Withdrawals like us, or you just love a good read, we can’t get enough of these books by our Words Out West authors! We love… The art of growing up by John Marsden Things a killer would know by Paula Doneman White Horses by Rachael Treasure Starting from now by Fleur McDonald Has our luck run out? […]

Feb, 2020

Debut Australian Authors

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: Australiana, author, books, dalby library, great reads, Historical fiction, New Releases, reading | Comments: 0

Sink your teeth into one of these debut novels from Australian authors! We highly recommend: Beneath the mother tree “Beneath the Mother Tree plays out in a unique and wild Australian setting, interweaving Indigenous history and Irish mythology.” Sign “A captivating novel full of strength, courage and the struggle to overcome silence.” The Van Apfel Girls are gone “Blackly comic, sharply observed and observed and wonderfully endearing, this is Picnic at Hanging Rock for a new generation. A haunting coming-of-age story with a shimmering, unexplained […]

Sep, 2019

A Book With NO PICTURES?

By: Lisa Harth | Tags: | Comments: 0

A Book with No Pictures? How can that possibly be interesting? Watch the reaction of the kids on this short video and find out. When this charming book, written and read by B.J. Novak began to gain popularity in bookstores, on YouTube and in the homes of average families it became apparent that children have a sophisticated sense of humour when read to in the right context and with a sense of fun permeating the underpinning early literacy lessons. Children love to be read to, often. And the person whose […]

Jul, 2019

What’s on Trevor’s bookshelf!

By: Janette Quince | Tags: children, dalby, dalby library, Early Literacy, education, first five forever, reading, storytime, storytime for bubs, Storytime for Kids | Comments: 0

How did Trevor get so clever? Well he reads books – lots of books. His favourite non-fiction book is The Big Book of Tricks for the Best Dog Ever by Larry Kay and Chris Perondi and Teach My Dog to do That by Jo-Rosie Haffenden. He also loves the book Lucky Dog Lessons by Brandon McMillan and Dog Training 101 by Kyra Sundance. Trevor also loves picture books and his favourite ones are the Pig the Pug series – yes, he is named after Pig’s best friend. Trevor also loves […]

Jun, 2019

What were Australian’s Reading in the Victorian Era?

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: australian history, books, History, libraries, literature, public libraries, reading, reading habits | Comments: 0

Whilst reading The Guardian Australia our library team came across a very interesting article. The Australian National University has conducted a study analysing the borrowing habits from a selection of Australian libraries between 1861 and 1928. They have a created a entire database where you can filter Australian reading habits by age, occupation, gender, and library. The data found that males were the predominant borrowers, mining the biggest occupation, and that fiction vastly outweighed non-fiction in borrowing choices. Quite a few of the popular titles are still in circulation in […]

Feb, 2019

The Lost Man – Jane Harper’s new release her best yet

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: australia, Australiana, Book, books, crime, Jane Harper, library, mystery, outback, reading, relationships, review | Comments: 0

Jane Harper has provided the Australian Mystery & Crime genre with another fantastic story set in the very heart of the outback. Based on a fictional outback station near, a town strikingly similar to Birdsville, two brothers attempt to come to grips with the unusual death of their third brother, and attempt to unearth how it this tragedy occurred. Their brother Cam has been found dead beneath an old stockman’s grave at an isolated spot on the 30,000 acre property. His brother Lee, already an outcast from the closest town, […]

Nov, 2018

Silence can be deafening

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: books, dalby library, great reads, New Releases, patriarchy, reading, women | Comments: 0

“Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just one hundred words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and seventy million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.” Vox is the debut novel by Christina Dalcher and a great book to read […]