Year 7 Reading Magazine

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 This is a poster for Book Aid International.

Read books
– and change lives!
Read books for Book Aid International.

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Sub-Saharan Africa, where books really can change lives.
How can you help?
1 Register on the Internet.
2 Find sponsors. Ask friends and family to
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3 Read as many books as you can in one
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4 Collect the money from your sponsors.
5 Send the money you raise to Book Aid
International.

Register now at www.bookaid.org

Why should you help?
Many adults and children in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot read very well. Families
often do not have money to pay for books of their own. Book Aid International
4D helps to provide books and libraries. Without this help, many African children
might not see or read a book during their childhood.
“I am a Maasai boy and one day our school was invited to a reading
tent in Vigwaza. We walked for almost three hours to reach the main
road. From there we boarded a bus to Vigwaza. There were many
other children from other schools there. I chose a book called Mgabga
Pazi. The story was very, very nice and I enjoyed it. In our school
there were no such books. When we arrived home everybody was
exhausted, but we were very excited to tell our parents what we had
seen. The reading tent made me see these books for the first time in
my life, so I will always remember it.”

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The outsider
On an Arctic island long ago, a stranger is approaching
a village.

“Papa,” I yell. “Someone is coming.”

Papa gathers Uncle and the other men. They come to
stand beside Finn, Tuaq and me in a show of communal
strength.
“He must be from one of the groups that have
already arrived at the coast,” Uncle suggests.
Papa nods. He doesn’t take his eyes off the approaching
figure.
“Get Nana,” he tells Miki.
If the man wants to stay, Nana will decide. She’s
already walking towards us, wearing her priestess cape
trimmed with raven feathers and arctic fox fur.
“Hullo-o-o,” the man calls into the wind.
Papa waits until he can see the stranger’s eyes. The
man is not from any villages we join with on the coast.
“Good morning,” Papa says cautiously.
“I am Hulag,” the man responds.
Papa doesn’t say his name. Instead he nods in
Nana’s direction. “This is Ananaksaq.” Nana is famous
throughout the icelands and Papa is reminding Hulag
how powerful our village is.
“It’s an honour to meet you.” Hulag’s eyes measure
Nana up and down. He doesn’t look impressed. His grin
says he thinks it will be easy to charm this old woman
with an oil-stained parka and dirty face.
Papa leads, but Nana decides, and she has made her
first decision. This man must wait out in the cold.

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Comets

tail of gas and dust the nucleus

of a comet

Comets are made from debris left over when our Solar System
was formed. The solid part of a comet, the nucleus, is a chunk
of ice typically measuring a few kilometres across. The ice in
comet’s path
a comet is mainly made up of frozen ammonia, methane and
water. Harvard University astronomer Fred L. Whipple, a pioneer
in comet research, described the nucleus as a ‘dirty iceberg’ to
reflect the fact that bits and pieces of dust and rocky material are
mixed in with the ice.

sun There are over 3000 known comets. They travel in various orbits
around the Sun, usually going deep into the far reaches of our
Solar System. The orbits of some comets bring them close to the
Sun after many years in darkness. When they come near the Sun,
comets reflect the Sun’s light and can therefore be seen in our
Figure 1: A comet’s
sky. Some comets take between two and three hundred years to
path around the Sun
orbit the Sun.
The Sun’s heat and light cause comets to shed material, which normally forms into
the characteristic long tail. As a comet approaches the Sun, the heat makes it expand,
evaporating gas and releasing dust. The gas and dust form a fuzzy head and a long tail.
Comet tails always point away from the Sun, regardless of the direction of the comet’s
motion.
One of the most famous comets is Halley’s Comet, which appears in our skies
approximately every 75 years. When it last came close to the Sun, in 1986, it was not as
bright as expected. Recently, a much more spectacular comet was Hale-Bopp. It shone
brightly in the night skies in 1996 and 1997, and had an impressive double tail that was easy
to see with the naked eye for several months.

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Pet dogs – what do you think?

May 21
May 28
Dear Editor,
Dear Editor,
Dogs are working animals, not pets. They
belong out on the farm, rounding up sheep Yes, Sarah Williston (May 21), we do
and cattle. In the city they are just a smelly, give dogs a good life, but they pay us
noisy nuisance. They leave their mess all back generously, with affection and
over the streets, and some of them never intelligence and good humour.
stop barking. Dogs are wonderful companions,
Where are their owners? Why are these loyal and trustworthy. They will
supposedly wonderful friends left alone play safely with the kids, or keep
to pine and whine and dig up the garden, a house-bound person company
or to bark at anyone who dares to walk all day long. Dogs are increasingly
past ‘their’ house? being used in nursing homes and
hospitals as a welcoming and calming
If we must have dogs in the city, they
presence, and in some places, teachers
need to be trained properly. Aside from
even have a pet dog in the classroom.
the street-poopers and the barkers, there
are the chasers and the bounders. These It is true that training a dog takes
dreadful creatures rush up and almost knock considerable time and effort, but it is
you f lat before you have time to decide time well-spent. Taking responsibility
if they are greeting you or attacking you. for a canine pet builds character, as
well as offering a lot of pleasure.
Farm dogs earn their keep, but these city
slickers consume far more than their fair
share of the world’s resources. And of Sincerely,
course, it’s not just scraps. It’s gourmet John Bonavista
cuisine, individually tinned or freeze-dried,
which the pampered darlings can eat
at their leisure from personalised doggy
bowls, before having a home-visit
haircut and shampoo or retiring to
their fur-lined baskets.

Sarah Williston

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 The f irst day
On his first day at a new school, Michael has been sent to the Principal’s office.

‘I’m Michael. I’m new here.’ I gave her my best shallow smile and hoped she’d take
the offer. She had to have better things to be doing with her time.
‘I know who you are, Michael, and I know why you’re here.’ In other words shut
up and let me do the talking. Fair enough too. I took the advice. She didn’t look all
that angry though. If anything she almost seemed amused by me and her tone was
friendly. I tried to remind myself who she was, in case it was some sort of trap. She
took a deep breath, like I was a small part in a big battle she’d long since stopped
trying to win, and smiled at me.
‘You’re hardly the first person to change schools, Michael, and you’re certainly not the
first to try to make an impression. And just between you and me, you’re not the first
to be sent here by Mr Jensen.’ She stopped, so I gave a little nod and mumbled my
agreement, which seemed to please her. ‘Quite. So what do you think we should do
about this?’
‘Maybe we could just chalk it up to experience,’ I tried, heartened by her apparent
good humour. She acted as if she hadn’t heard me.
‘Were you pleased your family decided to move here, Michael?’
‘Um, not pleased exactly,’ I admitted.
‘And how have you found us?’ It was bizarre. She was beginning to sound like some
old auntie stuck for conversation during a Christmas visit.
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘Yes, we are.’ She smiled at something I couldn’t even guess at.
‘And you think we should just leave this here do you?’ It had to be
a trap. I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything useful.
‘Let me just tell you this then. You don’t want to cross me, Michael. You’ll find me a
very loyal person to my staff. Do you understand that?’ Again I nodded. ‘Of course
I’ll have to ring home, to let them know things haven’t started too well for you, but
apart from that I think you should just get back to class and concentrate on keeping a
low profile, don’t you?’
It didn’t feel right. She was being reasonable, no doubt about that, but I couldn’t quite
trust her. There was something about the way she looked at me when she spoke, like
she had some private joke going I would never understand. And she was an adult.
There had to be something in it for her.

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Salinity – an environmental emergency

Salinity is one of Australia’s greatest Slow change

environmental problems. It occurs when too For many years, the practices that led to today’s
much salt rises from under the ground to the salinity problems went on without anyone
surface and ruins the soil. In 2000, there were 2.5 knowing the consequences. This was because
million hectares of salt-affected land in Australia. the effects of land clearing on watertables were
This may increase to 17 million hectares by 2050. not immediately obvious. Similarly, the effects
of changing these practices will not become
Rising watertable noticeable for decades, because it will take that
Land clearing is the major cause of Australia’s long for seedlings planted now to become trees
dryland salinity problem. Trees act as pumps, and restore watertables to their natural levels.
removing water from the soil and keeping
the water level in the ground well below the
Water transpires (is emitted as
surface. This level is called the watertable. Water water vapour) through leaves.
absorbed by the roots travels through the trunk
and out through the leaves into the air. In a day,
over 700 litres of water may pass through the
leaves of a fully grown river red gum.
Beneath the ground across much of Australia
there are large deposits of salt laid down by
ancient seas. The salt is harmless underground, Rain soaks into the soil.
but when it comes to the surface it does
damage. When trees are removed the watertable
rises, bringing the salt with it. Trees draw water from
the soil keeping the
watertable low. watertable
Costs
The cost of salinity to Australia’s farming Figure 1 Uncleared landscape
production is over $250 million a year, and the
cost is increasing. The CSIRO estimates that
salinity will cause the extinction of 1000 species
of Australian plants and animals. Salinity also A rising watertable
damages water pipes, roads, houses and parks. brings salt towards
In the city of Wagga Wagga, this type of damage Land clearing means the surface, killing
more water seeps many plants.
costs over $3 million each year. The level of through to the
salt in the Murray River is also increasing, and watertable.
by 2020 the water in Adelaide piped from the salt
Murray may be too salty to drink.

Halting the salt watertable

rises
Replanting native trees is a very effective method Rain and irrigation water
soaks into the soil.
of lowering the watertable. Native grasses have The watertable rises.
long roots that prevent water from rising to the
surface, unlike many introduced grasses that Figure 2 Cleared landscape
have shallow roots.

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 Avatar
Below are two reviews of the science-fiction film, Avatar, written and directed by
James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington.

Review 1 Review 2
There’s no argument that, as a showcase for The good news is that the most costly film
the immersive potential of 3D visual effects ever made is one of the best films of the
technology, James Cameron’s long-awaited year; not because the plotting is original,
$300 million sci-fi epic Avatar is an but because of the sheer film-making skills,
unqualified triumph. soaring imagination and technical expertise
that James Cameron brings to a timeless
But as a story designed to engage, enthral story of good and evil.
and entertain adult audiences for almost three
hours, it is a major disappointment, strewn Much in the film may not be very new
with weak characters, environmental platitudes (though the film is spectacularly
and anti-progress clichés. three-dimensional, the plotting constantly
threatens to lapse into two dimensions), but
Set on the distant, forest-covered moon somehow it all works wonderfully well,
of Pandora, the story tells of Jake Sully thanks mainly to Cameron’s storytelling
(Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former skills and to the movie’s fantastically
marine recruited by the heavily-militarised detailed vision, including six-legged horses
security division of an interplanetary mining and futuristic war machines.
corporation that is having trouble with the
natives, an aggressive blue-skinned race Sam Worthington acquits himself
known as the Na’vi, who look like they have extremely well as the hero, even though
spent too long at the gym. he’s transformed and unrecognisable as the
avatar Jake for much of the time. Stephen
The lush alien world Cameron creates is a Lang and Giovanni Ribisi are wonderfully
magnificent, photo-realistic landscape of hissable villains. However, Avatar succeeds
multicoloured dinosaurs, waterfalls and not so much because of its cast and
floating mountains. But with its patronising, narrative, but for the amazing world created
predictable images of noble savages, evil by Cameron and his designers and special 46C
technology and gigantic bulldozers crunching effects wizards.
their way through precious rainforests, the film
often feels like a megalithic piece of green
propaganda.
A compulsive envelope-pusher, Cameron
invented ground-breaking visual processing
techniques for the film, but perhaps he should
have spent a little less time obsessing over
the technology and a tad more developing the
story beyond the compendium of clichés it
regrettably is.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Read books – and change lives!
Selected text and image reproduced with permission of Book Aid International.
A Special Day
Extract from Finders Keepers by Emily Rodda. Text copyright © Emily Rodda, 1990. First published by Omnibus Books,
an imprint of Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd, 1990. Reproduced by permission of Scholastic Australia Pty Limited.
The outsider
Extract from Polar Boy by Sandy Fussell. Text © 2008 Sandy Fussell. Reproduced with permission of Walker Books Australia.
Comets
Image of a comet reproduced with permission of Photolibrary/Lodriguss Jerry.
Pet dogs – what do you think?
Image of a dog sign reproduced with permission of Corbis. © Estelle Klawitter/Corbis.
The first day
Extract from Lester by Bernard Beckett, Longacre Press, 1999. Reproduced with permission of Random House New Zealand.
Salinity – an environmental emergency
Adapted extract and illustrations from Australia’s Environment: how people have changed the environment by Greg Pyers,
Echidna Books, 2002. Reproduced with permission of Pearson Education Australia. Illustrations re-drawn by Yuko Fujita.
Avatar
Review 1: Adapted extract from review of ‘Avatar’ by Jim Schembri, The Age, 12 December 2009. Reproduced with permission
of Jim Schembri, courtesy of The Age.
Review 2: Adapted extract from review of ‘Avatar’ by David Stratton, The Australian, 15 December 2009. Reproduced with
permission of David Stratton.

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