We are very fortunate to have strong links with our neighbouring Geelong Regional Library Corporation branch at Newcomb. The Children's and Youth Services Librarian, Ms Laura Farrington, joins us fortnightly to run engaging and interactive sessions promoting genres and doing related craft activities! Laura has a merry band of students who regularly come to her sessions and we invite other students to join us in the school library at 1 p.m. on the dates below! Special activities happen at Easter, Halloween and Christmas with the odd Literature Trivia game throughout the year to spice things up. We also have Ms Naomi Ford from Newcomb Library to run the Lunchtime sessions as well this term, the students are really adoring the opportunity to discuss their favourite Manga reads and to vote on some new Manga titles for the school library!

This term we have a focus on Manga and Anime.

Manga VS Anime theme:  4 sessions this term

05/06 – Chibi Paper Craft

19/06 – Manga Trivia: Manga VS Anime

This year Newcomb Secondary College students are participating in the Children's Book Council of Australia's Shadow Judging program with 2 groups casting their votes on the best Australian books published in 2023. We are focussing on 2 categories 'Older Readers fiction' and 'Picture books' which are picture books for older readers. Our Year 7 students, students in Ms Wray's Year 9/10 Creative Writing elective unit and some keen Senior Year 10 and 11 students will experience the 6 shortlisted books in the 2 categories, consider the official judging criteria and cast their votes for which books they believe should win. The Older Readers group meet at lunchtimes, record their thoughts on each book in special CBCA booklets and make creative responses based on their favourite shortlisted books (poems, sculptures, fanfiction for example).

We will have celebrations on the day that the Book of the Year Announcements come out from the CBCA (Term 3) and see how our favourite books fared.  There will be some fantastic prizes for those students who voted for the winning books! Our Australian authors and illustrators are greatly supported by these annual competitions and the Students Choice awards are very important. For further information check out the Children's Book Council of Australia's Website about Shadow Judging. Students will share their creative responses and feedback about the books as they go (on this library page of the Newcomb Secondary College newsletter)!

CBCA Sun Project: Shadow Judging – Young voices welcome here