3rd October The Big Draw 1st -31st October

I have just returned from a holiday overseas. The pretence was to visit my daughter who lived in London, but while there we had a holiday in Portugal. Of course while away I visited many bookshops. and I was pleasantly surprised by how good the were at promoting children's books. They had a good stock, the children's book section was often closer to the front of the shop than it would be here, there was always children's titles in the window and they often had a special display. This was the case in both England and Portugal.

While in England I noticed that a couple of the book shops had special displays of books about drawing. Now I know that wasn't coincidental. During October in England they have a festival of drawing known as The Big Draw. "The Big Draw is a pioneering visual literacy charity dedicated to raising the profile of drawing as a tool for wellbeing, thought, creativity, social and cultural engagement."

Thus the books on drawing. There were books about how to draw by well known illustrators such as

Rob Biddulph

• My First Draw with Rob 

• Draw with Rob Amazing Animals 

• Draw with Rob in Space 

Charise Mericle Harper

• I Cannot Draw a Horse

• I Cannot Draw a Bicycle

Marion Deuchars

• Draw This!

• Art Play

• Draw, Paint, Print Like Great Artists.

James Mayhew

• Learn to Draw with Katie

Axel Scheffler

 How to Draw Gruffly and Friends

Ed Emberley

• How to Draw Monsters and More Scary Stuff

• Drawing Book of Faces

Mo Willems

• Doodling 101

• We're in an Art-ivity Book

Donovan Bixley

• Draw Some Awesome

Nick Sharratt

• How to Draw

Bluey

• Bluey: How to Draw

And of course there are lots of illustrators showing children how to draw on Youtube. Watch and see your children have fun. The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education CLPE has amazing resources online. Sign up for free.

If you have children in your class who don't want to draw or who say they can't draw search out drawing books about things they are interested in eg unicorns, cars, trucks, dinosaurs, animals, there's a book for nearly every topic.

There are wonderful books about drawing that will be good to read aloud and discuss such as:

• Everyone Can Draw  by Fifi Kuo

• Little Pea's Drawing School by Davide Cali and Sébastien Mourrain

• Dinosaurs Don't Draw by Elli Woollard and Steven Denton

• When I Draw a Panda  by Amy June Bates

There's even more drawing books to explore here.