KPE Episode 186 - "The Smallest Trolley Racer"

"The Smallest Trolley Racer" by Phillip Simpson
Last year, Tom and Mikaere came last in the annual school trolley race. Not second, or third, or sixth but dead last! But this year, they've got a secret weapon.... John and Colin from Room 18 have been reading this book from the Kiwi Bites series and they let us know all about the story. You need to listen to this podcast because NEXT year Pt England School is entering a crew in the Soap Box Derby. This starts out as a local event in our neighbourhood, but if we get through to the finals we would end up in Akron, Ohio in the United States of America!! How cool is that? We love competition here at Pt England School so we will be looking forward to the challenge of getting our own trolley built and racing it. So Year 5 students, you need to get ready for this, and if you want to volunteer to be in the team, let us know in the comments.....

KPE Episode 185 - "Rough, Tough and had Enough"

"Rough, Tough and had Enough" by Mary Barrow.
Leilani has been reading this exciting adventure story and Alisi interviews her about the book. These girls are both Year 6 students at Pt England School.
Michael, the main character in this book, is a real city boy and he likes playing play station and watching television way more than going outside. Michael’s father is a real outdoors man and he decides to take Michael tramping - which he is not happy about! They stay in a hut in the bush and have a lot of experiences that Michael doesn’t really enjoy at first. And you will have guessed that they end up having some pretty exciting adventures together.
The girls recommend this book as a great read for girls as well as boys (the publishers say it is a boys book!) and Leilani tells us that the message this author is bringing in this book is the same as one of our koreros at Pt England School - "Give it a go!" You have a much more interesting life if you give new things a go, don't you? Have a listen to their podcast.....

KPE Episode 184 - "Pandora's Box"

"Pandora's Box" by Pauline Cartwright
This book is reviewed by John from Room 18 and his classmate Ramona is his DJ for the podcast.If you know anything about myths and legends you might be thinking that this book is a retelling of the story of Pandora' Box. You would be wrong. It is about a boy called Aidan who lives alone with this father and they have some fun times together. They paint the words "Pandora's Box" on a shed outside because they keep bees in there. You could click this link if you are interested in finding out what that has to do with the old legend. You really should listen to this podcast to find out what happens in this book because it has a great plot and they recommend it highly. John tells us that besides writing a fun story the author is telling us that crime doesn't pay! Sounds like a good message.....

KPE Episode 183 - "Duffy's Search for the Pohutakawa Seeds"

"Duffy's Search for the Pohutakawa Seeds" by Alan Duff.
Tinei and Leilani talk about a book that was written by the man who founded the Books in Homes foundation. At Pt England School we all get given wonderful books by Books in Homes. We get to pick them from a catalogue and when they come we take them home to keep. So it is really good that we can tell you about one of Alan Duff's books.
Duffy is the hero of this story and he has to look for pohutukawa seeds for a school project and he isn't very interested. There are many other things he'd rather be doing, like taking a nap, which he manages to do on the back of an old truck.
But when he wakes up, he finds himself in Rotorua and he's about to discover a lot more than pohutukawa seeds: friendship, adventure and knowledge about himself and a fascinating part of his country. He also realises that life is full of exciting choices."
We know that you will enjoy this podcast and the book they are talking about. Why don't you tell us what is the best Duffy book you have ever been given...?

Thank you from all of us at KPE

Thanks listeners We have been posting our podcasts to our blog here at blogspot for one year now and we want to say a big THANK you to everyone who has ever visited our blog or downloaded our podcasts from iTunes. We love it when you leave comments for us and we like sharing our reading with people from around the world. We have read so many cool books in the past year and we have reviewed 112 of them on our podcasts in the last 12 months.
We posted a cluster map widget on our blog when we started it and it has recently been archived. that means they started our map again from nothing. Luckily we took a snapshot of it the day before they took it away and you can see where all our visitors have come from over the last year. There were 4143 people from more than 50 countries. That is very cool.
Tell us if you know about someone from another country who has visited our blog or listened to our podcast. We would love to hear about it.

KPE Episode 182 "The Magic Noodle Show"

"The Magic Noodle Show" by Janice Marriott
Leoden and Campbell are in Room 15, a Year 5 class, and they have written and recorded this podcast. They tell us about a book by an author who has taken time out to visit Pt England School because she heard about our podcasts. This story is about a boy called Hong. Hong's class is having a careers afternoon, and his grandfather is coming to talk about his job. Hong's family runs a Chinese restaurant, and he's nervous about what his classmates will think when his grandfather speaks. How can making noodles be interesting? Well you will find out as you listen that making noodles is VERY interesting and that these boys love to eat them!

Tell them about your favourite noodle dish.