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of School Librarianship

GiggleIT in Oceania

Newtown State School
Queensland, Australia

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Our School 

Australian is in the southern hemisphere and is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is an island, a continent and a country all in one.

Our country Australia has many marvellous things such as:
Uluru in the Northern Territory, the Opera House in Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge in New South Wales and the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.

Toowomba is a city in south-east Queensland. It is located 132 km west of Brisbane and is known as the “Garden City”. Toowoomba hosts the Carnival of Flowers each September and Easterfest is held annually over the Easter weekend. Toowoomba sits on the crest of the Great Dividing Range and on an extinct volcano. Toowoomba has an urban population of over 90 000 residents.

Newtown State School is in Toowoomba and was established in 1924. There are about 20 teachers and 280 students. Our school is really special because it holds an ANZAC service every year to honour those who served our country.
There are 8 students in our group which was chosen to write stories. We have been learning about the 7 steps to writing success including sizzling starts, action scenes and building tension. Our story ideas came about when we had a lucky dip of different characters, problems and settings. That means some of our stories are really crazy.

Our Projects

Lost Dog’s Grave
Izzy’s story

“Oooh, why did he have to die?” cried Eloise, tears running down her face.
Ding dong! Her two friends’ faces appeared in the window.
“How are you?” said Jess. “I tried ringing you. What happened?”
“One minute I was playing with him the next he was gone.”
“Hey I’ve lost a dog before, after a while you tend to get over it,” whispered Jessie kindly. Suddenly a second howl broke through the silence. The girls froze.
“Is that a werewolf?” exclaimed Georgia. “And it’s coming from under the house were we buried Collar. Look, steam everywhere. It looks like the windows are frozen! What’s that?”
“Don’t look at it!” cried Eloise.
“What is it?” exclaimed Georgia. Just then a glowing figure appeared at the window and they all leapt back in fright! The thing looked down at them with its big bulging eyes. Georgia yelled out, “Get the stakes!”
“What does it want? How many are there?” said Jessie.
“We have to defend ourselves!” exclaimed Georgia. Georgia froze. Literally, she was ice. “Be calm,” muttered Eloise to herself, “I think Georgia made the aliens angry. It’s going to be war.” whispered Eloise with finality. Suddenly every-thing went silent; even Georgia’s slow scream stopped.
“WOW I think it’s over,” said Jessie.” Then five large glowing aliens got up. Eloise jumped back but Jessie didn’t. It was like the alien had caught her mind.
“Don’t hurt them they talked to me. They are trying to tell me they are unhappy too.”
“You’re lying,” said Eloise.”
“No I’m not. I understand they are a bit scary but the aliens also want to pull your house apart to find their space dog’s grave.”
“WHAT?” exclaimed Eloise.
“It’s next to Collar’s grave.” said Jessie “I told them to dig under the house instead.”
When the aliens came out of the hole, Eloise said, “You can take Collar as well for your dog to play with.”
They watched silently…Three, two, one, blast off! Collar, the space dog and the aliens soared off up into the sky.
“I’m happy for you Eloise,” said Jessie, “And Collar will be happy now.”
Suddenly the ice cracked around Georgia, freeing her.
All the girls laughed!

What kind of teacher would steal a student
Yasmin’s story

One day a girl named Chloe was kidnapped by her teacher Miss Spookbooge. She was mean, had warts and horrible wrinkles.
Whenever she smiled, nearly all the class would faint and when she showed her teeth it looked like she lived in the jungle, using bugs for toothpaste and twigs for a toothbrush. She was really mean to everyone.

If you were closer than one metre she would throw you through the window. Or if they were a good student, which there were none, you would get thrown on the ground. So if you are in Miss Spookbooge’s class I warn you, don’t go closer than one metre from Miss Spookbooge.

Back at Miss Spookbooge’s home, Chloe was tied to Miss Spookbooge’s bed. She had been kidnapped. She couldn’t move up or down. So she was stuck right in the middle.

Chloe was a sensitive, smart and bright child. She had long black hair that always had sparkly clips, ocean blue eyes and skin as soft as a baby’s bottom. She was about 1.45m tall and she never misbehaved or back chatted.

One day she was trying to break free and Miss Spookbooge came through the door and she said, “What are you doing?”
“Leave me alone you old crumbled marshmallow.”
“What did you call me, you imbecile?”
“You heard me,” Chloe said in the nicest way possible.
“I’m big, you’re little, I’m strong and you’re weak and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It was 8.20am. “Time for school, I’ll fix you later you little nasty.”

Later that day, “What’s the time please Miss?” asked a child in her class.
“It is 11:01. Lunchtime.” Miss Spookbooge answered and looked suspicious.
Chloe’s best friend, August, was spying on Miss Spookbooge. The day before she’d been acting weirdly after August asked where Chloe was. August was thinking that Miss Spookbooge knew about Chloe’s disappearance.

Back at Miss Spookbooge’s house, Chloe had a bright idea to escape. Chloe was making a plan and at the blink of an eye… Chloe hit the hand-cuffs on the bed but it didn’t work. So Chloe smashed them against a mirror.

Chloe grabbed a hair clip from her hair and picked the window lock. It was 1.30pm when she started picking the lock and the time now was 2.15pm. Seventy-five minutes until Miss Spookbooge would be home. Trembling, Chloe finally got the lock but it was 2.55pm. She opened the window and jumped out, running as fast as she could to her mum and dad’s house and she banged on the door. She jumped into her mum’s arms when she saw her. Chloe said in a lovely way “It’s good to be home!”
“It’s good to have you home,” her mum said while crying in happiness.
“What happened to your face?” said her mum. “Miss Spookbooge’s what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Miss Spookbooge kidnapped me” said Chloe in a tired voice.
“Let’s ring the police” her mum said
The police came and arrested Miss Spookbooge.
Two years later, Miss Spookbooge was in jail and Chloe’s family lived happily ever after.

The clever monkey
Jackson’s story

“Aargh… aargh!” A huge lion roared in agony. He put a big paw on his sore cheek.
“Ooh look, a scary lion! Wait he’s on the loose! Everyone run for your lives!” The monkey scampered up and down. “Hey where is every one?” he looked around.

Looking at the lion, “We are the only ones here.”
“Hey lion I will help you with your tooth… Arrr help me lion, I’m being monkey-Knapped. Heeeelp heeeelp help me lion. Help me.” The little monkey was whisked away.

When the monkey-napper got home he treated the monkey badly. Over night the monkey used his clever brain to escape. He looked out the window. It was a long way down so he went to the door but it was locked so he had a look around for another way out but he couldn’t do it with an empty stomach. He saw a banana and quickly jumped up on the bench and ate it.

“That gave me some energy”, he declared bouncing around. He jumped down and ran to the back door.
“How dumb is he, he left it unlocked!” and he jumped over the fence, heading off in the direction of the big tent.
Back at the circus, he slowly crept up behind and very quietly got the key out of the guard’s pocket … opened the door then quickly shut the door to the lion’s cage.

Back at the house the monkey-napper woke up. He didn’t see the monkey anywhere but he heard the circus and thought he would investigate.
He saw the monkey but he was in the lion’s cage. He was so sleepy that he tripped and ran into his own fence.
So the monkey was safe. He went over to lion.
“Does your tooth still hurt?” “Yes.”
“Do you want me to pull out your tooth now”?
“YES please!” So the monkey yanked the tooth out.
“Ouch that hurt! But I’m all right. Thanks for getting back in and helping me get out my tooth”.

Years later they still did shows and acts together and they enjoyed being in the circus together.

The magician 

Alex Mitchell’s story

One hot sunny day there was a young man named Barry with short blonde hair who was thinking about where he was going to take his class for an excursion.
He got into his class room and gasped, “OH my, gosh what are you doing?’’ His class was throwing lamp chalk and even paint at each other.
“Sit down!” he ordered, but no one heard. “SIT DOWN NOW!” he roared.

Suddenly everyone sat down and Barry told his class that they wouldn’t be going anywhere if they kept up their nonsense.
“GRRRR! What was that?’’ said Barry so he peered around the door and there it was; a fat, very tall, green ferocious looking creature. It was a Blubabarian one of the world’s scariest beasts.

Everyone was running around screaming and Barry couldn’t think “ahha, Cassandra can you zip to the library and get The Great Spell Book?”
“I’m on my way!” she said.

When Cassandra got back, Barry took the book and he could feel the wind of the pages flickering until he found how to kill a Blubabarian
It read,
Step 1: Tacky! Wacky! Mackey!
Step 2: Get another person to shout, “Bang, Smash, Boom”.
Step 3: Don’t say another word after that and the Blubabarian should be dust.
“Cassandra, students say, ‘BangSmashBoom’ on the count of three!’’ said Barry, “One two three!TackyWackyMackeyBangSmashBoom!” they yelled.

Silently, Barry peered around the corner and saw a big pile of black ashes which was about seven feet tall and ten feet wide.
So he called for his classroom cleaner Mrs Bottlebrush (she was an expert on cleaning) and she was there in a flash.

The bell rang and everyone rushed out of the classroom. Most of them either fell into the ashes or ran into the principal Mr Pride, who was not very proud because of the poor behaviour of the students. He shook his head.

The next morning Barry knew where he was going; that place was the Ancient Far East Forest. Barry told his class that they would have to bring their Magic Spell Book, a magic wand, water bottle, their manners, lunch, wear School Uniform and even a family photo.

The next morning Barry asked as many teachers as he could find to come along, so when he got back to his class he told them that other teachers could come as well. “Mr Pride can come, Mrs Bottlebrush can come, Mr Nasty can’t make it, Mr Rude can come, Mr Strict can’t come, finally Mr Dumb said “I come trip too” (because he’s stupid) and Bruiser the school dog barked proudly which meant “Yes please!”

One week later all the students got onto the bus. Off they went past a boulder, through a cave and under a bridge, and even over a cliff (by using magic).
They had all just set up camp when they saw another group of students abusing some of Barry’s group. They started a dramatic fight.
First the other group of kids rolled a large boulder down the hill towards Barry’s class. It just missed them and as soon as he stood up he grabbed his Magic Spell Book out of his bag and looked for a spell called animorph.
It read,
Step 1: say, “Duck, cow, dog”;
Step2: smash a bottle of powerful potion; and
Step 3: say whatever direction they’re coming from; “north”, “south”, “east”, or “west”.
Then the spell should change them all to be animals.
Barry yelled at the top of his voice, “Duck! Cow! Dog!”
Barry and his students looked and laughed because the thugs were all turned into cute baby animals, hopping and playing and tumbling together on the grass.

Finally Barry and his students reached the top of the mountain. They gazed around and then they cast a mystical spell called ‘Paradise’ which turned the mountain into a beautiful island complete with palm trees. It was strange but from that day forward Barry’s students were more honest and had better behaviour so he could trust his class for the rest of the year.

I wish all the classes could be as well behaved as all of you, he sighed looking happily at his students…

I'm going to kill you

“Zzzz”
“What’s that?” yelled Roshelle to Georgia.
“It’s a swarm of bees.”
“RUN!” Roshelle dashed through the forest like a bolt of lightning.
“Jump up here with me.”
“Who are you?”
“Well I’m a pirate. Peter pirate is the name.” once they hopped up. “Now I’ll kill you with my old rusty hook.”

With crumbled bark under her hands Georgia yelled, “Jump!” So they jumped and ran.
“Wait a minute. What’s that?” said Roshelle.
“It’s a cottage. Let’s go and check it out,” Georgia said, “no one’s in there.”
“Peter found us, quick hide,” whispered Roshelle.

“Here’s the plan. We creep and jump on his back, you grab his hook and I’ll knock him down, you dig his hook into the ground and we’ll get his hook,” whispered Roshelle, “you go left and I’ll go right.”

“Let’s move!” yelled Georgia. There behind him they jumped, knocked down and finally, killed him. Victoriously they called 000, and the other pirates were caught by the police department.

“Hey let’s go to the mall and get some ice-cream,” said both of them at the same time.

A fair disaster
by Roshelle

“Grrrrrrr!”
Jony turned around, there was a lot of running and screaming going on around him. As soon as he turned he saw a hungry animal running with anger toward him.
“Quick Jony over here,” Kali called. They both were finally safe from the hungry animal. They were in a dark corner waiting for an opportunity to run for it.
“Wow that ride looked like fun! Oh I really wanted to go on that ride,” moaned Kali. Kali ran and got a net to catch the giant hungry animal. When she had caught him everyone had stopped running. They came out of their hiding places and started to thank Kali and Jony. A big truck came to take the Hungry Animal to his home.
He lived in the dangerous forest of ‘The Unknown’. So the next morning they set off to the dangerous forest of ‘The Unknown’. That morning their dangerous journey began.
After three hours of a cold stormy night, Kali woke up with Jony gone and the cage swinging open.
She looked for him and around the corner. She sighed and yelled “Come on then Jony let’s go. We better get going before we run out of day light!!!” Jony whistled very loudly and the giant Hungry Animal ran into his cage and before you knew it, Jony locked it.
Kali drove the truck to the Sunken River which was muddy smelly, gross grime and slimy moss.
“How many miles do we have left?” asked Jony who was busy stuffing his face with lollies.
“I don’t know, but I do know that you have to stop eating those lollies and we need to keep going on our journey,” said Kali with dignity.
“Oh look there’s a tree you can eat from, its fruit looks delicious maybe i…” said Jony.
“Huh, I don’t think so!” exclaimed Kali furiously.
Suddenly the cage door swung open just as Kali picked the fruit, and just as she put it to her mouth the Hungry Animal quickly slapped it out of her hands,
“Don’t eat that, you will die from the poison that the fruit produces,” he said in a deep voice.
Kali just dropped the fruit into the long grass and jumped into the truck once again and started to drive off and left the poisonous fruit on the ground to go find another fruit she could eat to quench her hunger.
In time she finally got to the Hungry Animal’s home and there she said “Do you have any food here?” The Hungry Animal finally nodded.
He ran to into the forest and disappeared into the mist for five minutes, they waited and waited, and they saw a figure running toward them with something in his mouth. It was big with a slimy back, it had little legs and big black eyes.
When he got there, Jony and Kali gasped with amazement.
“What is that thing, is it a giant grub or something?” Kali gasped.
“Yes it is, its very juicy and delicious…,” said the Hungry Animal in a deeper voice than before.
“Well, eat up you said you were starving so I got you something that is ‘REALLY’ big,” he said trying to hide a smile behind his smirk like face.
“Mmmff! It does taste like chicken,” said someone stuffing their face with grubs.
They set off to go home though ‘The Forest of Unknown’. When they got to ‘The Forest of Unknown’ Jony and Kali were scared and shaking with fear.
“Hhayy arrre yooou sccaredd llike I amm?” Asked Jony fearfully “Yesss I amm just llike yoou,” said Kali just as scared as Jony.
Suddenly they heard cracking in a bush ahead.
“Jony do you see that bush moving ahead?” said Kali very very worried.
“Yeah yeah Kali that’s wonderful,” he said ignoring Kali.
Kali was scared; she knew that someone or something was watching her. Suddenly she saw something in the bush with dark red eyes glaring at her and watching them pass and, suddenly it attacked. Jumping on the truck it is making them crash. Kali’s tongue was bleeding like hell, “Ay ony pusl uu ha tuck, ow go fet me a ishoo fom ha tuck, ma tung is bleeting, hury ow!” yelled Kali in pain.
Jony drove so fast that he ran straight into a tree, he ran out of the truck “Slam” went the door. “Aaawww” went Jony.

Tune in for the next series of A Fair Disaster.
So keep your fingers crossed and hope they get out alive!!!

Adventures on a ship

“Oooh what’s that? Is it a ship?” exclaimed Genie. He was walking along the shore side where nobody was about. He wanted to make sure that nobody was around. So he used his magic powers because he sensed someone was around.
Genie wanted to find out who it was so he went into the ship to check it out to see if anyone was there.
“HELLO, HELLO, IS ANYONE THERE!” Genie yelled. There was no answer.
From the glint of Genie’s eye he saw something round and spikey. “Ohhh,” exclaimed Genie, “What’s that?” Genie touched the wheel and screamed, “HELP ME, HELP ME, I’M MOVING!”
“Of course you’re moving you touched the wheel,” said a voice.
“Who are you?” asked Genie. “Show your face!” said the Genie shivering.
A man walked out with a silly costume on. Genie laughed his head off.
“My name is Genie. What is yours?” asked Genie still giggling a bit.
“Well, just call me ‘Man in Strange Costume’.”
“Well of course I’ll call you that,” said the genie laughing even harder.
“I’m bored,” said Genie, “Do you have any cards to play with?”
“What are cards?”
“You don’t know what cards are? Well I have some, but I have to use my magic powers,” said the genie
“Where’s my carpet? Screamed Genie
“I don’t know where it is but I saw something fly out the window.”
“Well that’s was my carpet!” Genie said to the Man in a Strange Costume.
Genie asked Man in Strange Costume “What is your real name?”
“Well, it is Stewart”
“WOW, I really would not have guessed,” said Genie
“You like it?” questioned Stewart.
“Yeah, I mean I would not have guessed because it’s my dad’s name.” said Genie.
Without warning, Genie and Stewart were thrown off their feet, flying to the other side of the ship
“Well well, wasn’t that fun?” exclaimed Stewart
“No no. How could you say that?” yelled Genie.
“Well it’s called a shipwreck and I’ve been in one before except it was in another ship but we hit a rock at shore,” said Stewart
Stewart and Genie went and had a look were they were.
Then Genie said, “I wish there were superheroes that could fly.”
Then suddenly, something came out of nowhere there were superheroes!
“Who are you?” asked Genie.
“Well this is Wonderful Woman and I’m Wonder Man,” said Wonder Man.
“I’m, I mean we, are begging to go back to shore,” pleaded Genie.
“Well of course we’ll save you,” said Wonderful Woman.
“Now, one little slight problem. Who’s flying with who?”
“OK I’m going with Wonderf…” said Genie
“No I am,” interrupted Stewart.
“Guess what? I have a better idea,” butted in Wonder Man.
“How about you hang upside down so I’m holding a leg and Wonderful Woman is holding the other leg,” said Wonder Man.
Genie and Stewart both agreed. So about 5 minutes later, Genie, Stewart, Wonder Man and Wonderful Woman were back at shore.
“You know, I’m hungry. Anyone have any food,” said Genie
“No,” said everyone.
Soon, they all found a little tiny shop for travellers. Genie bought some food and supplies for their journey.
Later on Genie found some shelter for the night. Soon they all went to sleep for a rest, and woke up in the morning feeling really good.
The next morning really early they all headed off to find treasure because Genie had a map that he had been carrying around for a few years. Someday he wanted to find it.
Later on that day they all saw a bit of a hill and Genie thought the treasure was there. On the map it showed the treasure marked on a hill.
Genie thought it looked right. The treasure was under the hill. Instead of finding treasure, gold and silver, he found his old toy that was very special. He thought it was special because could direct you on a journey.
“It still works,” said Genie. He was very pleased.
A few hours later, Wonder Man and Wonderful Women left.
“Bye, see you next time and thanks for helping,” said Genie and Stewart.
Stewart and Genie went on. Genie and Stewart went back to the shelter they found before and so thy both can get a nice long rest and so thy can get back to the little shop to ask were they can stay. The man in the shop told them that they can stay at his house which is at the back of the shop, it’s quite big.
Genie and Stewart had their own food for about 2-3 days. That night Genie had some lollies and some vegies. Stewart had a bit of chicken that the man of the house gave him and some fruit.
To Genie’s surprise, he saw his magic carpet.
“Oh, you’ve come back to me,” said Genie in great excitement.
“What, what is it?” screamed Stewart to Genie
“My carpet has come back to me.” Exclaimed Genie
“Well that’s a relief. Isn’t it?” Sighed Stewart.
After Genie and Stewart set off in search of some shelter.
Later Genie saw the shipwreck they had and he had an idea.
Genie said to Stewart,
“Now I have my magic carpet back, I can fix the ship.” said Genie. Soon Genie and Stewart went off to sleep and had a very good sleep.


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