1st February Langston Hughes(1902-1967)

Inspired by Julie from 'Julie and Julia' fame and because I spent last term of 2009 doing a Web 2 course, I thought 2010 was the year for me to be more serious about IT and what it could add to my role as a teacher librarian in a Prep School. That means I only teach children between 3 years and 8 years old. Their teachers and parents use the library as well. I am passionate about children's literature and reading education and where the two areas coincide.

If I am going to write every day, then how should I organise it? What I initially planned is already being done well by other bloggers who appear to have more time to devote to this than I do, so this will be book listing mainly without planned teaching activities.

While I was doing post-graduate study in children's literature I made a birthday book, listing all the author and illustrator birthdays that I could find. This was before the internet so it was a very time-consuming task. Now that it is easier to access this information I have added to my birthday book and I use the list to create displays and highlight books in the library.

So now using this information I plan to enter a post for each day usually celebrating a birthday, but where there is a gap, I will choose another focus.

1st February

Today is a palindromic day! In Australia we would write the date 01.02.2010. See it is a palindrome. So a good book for today is Mom and Dad Are Palindromes by Mark Shulman & Adam McCauley. If you want a novel then Libby Gleeson's story, Skating on Sand about sibling rivalry and camping also allows for a discussion of palindromes.

Also today I taught the new kindergarten classes for the first time. They are so excited about visiting the library and being able to borrow books for themselves without their mum or teacher. I read them Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, talked about our library rules and we all gave our library lion lots of pats and hugs.

And lastly today is Langston Hughes' birthday! He lived from 1902 till 25th May 1967. His books and poetry are not always easy to find in Australia but his best poems are short and very accessible to young children and when you add wonderful illustrations they become even more accessible. Look for My People, illustrated with stunning photographs by Charles R. Smith, which has just won the 2010 Coretta Scott King Award and The Negro Speaks of Rivers illustrated by E.B.Lewis.