What is the Fish Doorbell? The Fish Doorbell (or visdeurbel in Dutch) is exactly what it sounds like – a doorbell for fish! The Vecht, a branch of the river Rhine, flows through Utrecht.  As it goes through the city, the Vecht passes through the Weerdsluis lock – a lock is a bit like a gate that’s been engineered to help boats travel along rivers or canals uphill. If you’d like to know a bit more about locks, we recommend heading over to the Encyclopedia Britannica. To access this article on Britannica, just sign in with your library card barcode number and 4-digit pin. At this time of ye ..read more

Learn from the master himself! During the April school holidays, we are lucky to be hosting superstar author and illustrator Paul Beavis (Nee Naw, There Was an Odd Farmer Who Swallowed a Fly, Ring Ting Tūī) for a fantastic workshop at Te Māhanga Karori Library. Come along to Karori Library at 2pm on Friday the 26th of April to meet Paul, learn all about how a picture book gets made, and draw along with him to pick up some new skills from the master. Who knows, you might even be inspired to start writing your own picture book! Space is limited, so registrations are required — sign up here. Th ..read more

The 1st of April has finally arrived, and so we have officially opened submissions for Tūhono 2024, our annual poetry journal for children and teens! This year’s theme is “Tūmanako | Hope” — check out our last blog post for the full details. We are so excited to read your entries this year — just make sure you get them in before the 12th of May! Use the button below to submit your entry. Submit your poem for Tūhono 2024! Here’s a wee reminder of the guidelines this year: We want you to write a poem on the theme of “Tūmanako | Hope.” The kupu Māori ‘tūmanako has a wide range of meani ..read more

The School Holidays are getting closer! And we’re excited to announce our theme and programme for the April school holidays this year. From the 13th to the 28th of April, we invite you to join us for WHODUNNIT? at Wellington City SPYbraries and enter a world of detectives, spies, espionage, and mystery. We have a whole range of exciting activities planned for you – race against the clock to solve a mystery, search through your local library – sorry, SPYbrary – to solve the mystery of the Golden Tickets, create your own kit of spy gadgets, or put together a tricksy maze using our LEGO® set ..read more

This month’s new books for kids are all about exploration!  Exploration of space, place, story, and feelings, whatever realm you’re interested in finding more about, we have gorgeous new books to help and entertain you.  Take a look at this selection below… Picture Books Snail in space / Bright, Rachel “Gail the snail has always been told not to dream too big or reach too far, but Gail is not your average snail, and she has plans to be the first… SNAIL IN SPACE! Join Gail on her stellar adventure and discover the magic of reaching for the stars and giving it your all.” (Catalogue) Ch ..read more

The winners themselves have known for a couple of weeks, but the day has finally come — it’s time for us to publicly announce the Grand Prize winners of the 2023-24 Summer Reading Adventure! Of course, everyone who took part is a winner in some way — whether you won badges, books, stationery, vouchers, or just the eternal respect and admiration of your peers, your fearless ventures into the Land of Literature have not gone unrewarded. In fact, during the Summer Reading Adventure, our librarians gave out 2,270 prizes to intrepid word explorers across our fair city. Some of these prizes came alo ..read more

Surprise! We librarians REALLY love books (almost more than cats) and so when we come across a book about books?! Well, we do a little happy dance. Here are a few good ones we’ve added to the collection recently: Once upon a book by Grace Lin (picture book; ages 4–8) It’s a cold winter’s day and Alice is bored. A book beckons her (quite literally) into its pages, and she climbs inside and becomes part of the unfolding story. A book that celebrates the joy of reading and the ability of books to transport us into other worlds. This book is banned by Raj Haldar (picture book; ages 4-8) This funny ..read more

Seaweek 2024 has just started! Seaweek is New Zealand’s national week for celebrating the sea, and this year it runs from the 2nd to the 10th of March. Or come and check out the fantastic Seaweek displays in our libraries! Here in Aotearoa we are surrounded by the sea, so it’s no surprise that our moana is something many of us feel a strong connection to. Every year, Seaweek hopes to inspire us all to engage with nature, explore the ocean, and develop this sense of connection with our environment and the sea. Seaweek is an opportunity to get involved in a community beach clean-up, visit a ma ..read more

Tūhono, Wellington City Libraries’ poetry journal for children and teens, will soon be opening for submissions! From 1 April – 12 May, we will be accepting submissions of poetry from young writers aged 5 – 18 in Wellington City. In previous years we have published more than 200 young poets in Tūhono — so this year we’ll again be splitting it into two books, one for kids and one for teens. Unlike some other poetry journals, having your work accepted in Tūhono is not a competition — as long as you follow the rules of submission, every piece of work that gets sent to us will be published.&nb ..read more

There is so much to read, learn and enjoy in the latest bunch of books added to our collection.  You can find out why seals are jerks, or what happens when a greedy pea eats all the food.  Read about a cake-baking inflatable donut or some eerie stories that will make you tremble.  Maybe you’d prefer unicorns, tuatara or seashells.  Whatever you’re interested in, you’ll find something fascinating in this selection. Picture books The princess and the (greedy) pea / Hodgkinson, Leigh “We all know ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’. But have you heard the one about the ..read more