25th April ANZAC Day

I have written about Anzac Day before here, but so many new picture books have been published since then that will help teachers and families share the significance of this day that I felt I should update my list. The new books probably have been initiated by publishers in readiness for next year, the 100th Anzac Day, but never the less many of them are memorable. A few weeks ago at a CBC event a publisher had the dummy for another book that is about to come out. I can't remember the title, author or illustrator, but the story made me cry. A young man goes off to war and is killed. His injured mate brings his coat home to his wife and as you can imagine she is shattered. I will find sharing this one very hard, but I have just read Lightning and another one about a horse that was in the battlefields and the two about dogs and I can see the students reading them and being moved by the love between the soldiers and their animals. See the list here on Pinterest and if you want an annotated list look here at Momo's list.

25th April Anzac Day

It is Anzac Day, a day when all Australians and New Zealanders remember their countrymen who have fought in wars, beginning with WW1. It is a holiday in Australia so any celebration done at school is usually before or after the actual day. This year it is right at the end of the school holidays so it will be afterwards. I have collected together all the picture books in my library ready for teachers and parents to borrow on Monday. Once it was hard to find books for early childhood aged children, but now there are so many wonderful picture books just right for sharing and discussing with young children.

Here's our collection:
• The Bantam and the Soldier by Jennifer Beck and Robyn Bolton
• Lone Pine by Susie Brown and Margaret Warner  
• Why Are You Marching, Daddy? by Di Burke
• The Fair Dinkum War by David Cox
• Memorial by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan
• Anzac Biscuits by Phil Cummings and Owen Swan
• Grandad's Medals by Tracy Duncan and Bruce Potter
• A Day to Remember by Jackie French and Mark Wilson
• The Donkey of Gallipoli by Mark Greenwood and Frane Lessac
• The Red Poppy by David Hill and Fifi Colson
• My Grandad Marches on Anzac Day by Catriona Hoy and Benjamin Johnson
• Anzac Day Parade by Glenda Kane and Lisa Allen
• In Flanders Fields by Norman Jorgensen and Brian Harrison-Lever
• Harry and the Anzac Poppy by John Lockyer
• My Mother's Eyes: The Story of an Australian Boy Soldier by Mark Wilson

Some of these are fairly new, such as Anzac Biscuits and Lone Pine which are particularly moving and provide plenty of food for thought. These books have been written about on many websites and many come with teaching notes.

25th April Anzac Day, Walter de la Mare (1873 - 1956) David Kirk (1955)

SOME ONE

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I'm sure - sure - sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But naught there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;

Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,

Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

English poet Walter de la Mare was the first poet I remember learning a poem of verbatim. It was called Someone and I can still quote half of it decades later. It obviously had impact. The children at school love it when I can say a poem without a book or text in front of me. I was also interested to read that he believed that there was no such thing as a good poem for children, only a poem that children could understand.

David Kirk is the author/illustrator of the Miss Spider series of books. Miss Spider is a vegetarian spider who only eats flowers!

19th April

There isn't any birthday to highlight today. Instead I thought I would alert you to two books suitable for sharing with a very young audience for Anzac Day which is coming up next Sunday, 25th April. While there are non-fiction books giving factual information, such as Jill Bruce's Anzac Day, imparting it as 'dry information' to young children is always hard. It is always easier to make it significant by relating it to their experiences and these two books view Anzac Day from a young child's perspective, something that they may also have experienced and be happy to talk about. My Grandad Marches on Anzac Day by Catriona Hoy and Benjamin Johnson, is Australian and relates a young girl's account of how and why her grandfather takes part in the Anzac Day march. Grandad's Medals is by New Zealanders Tracy Duncan and Bruce Potter. Its narrator is a young boy and while it is a longer story that includes more than just the Anzac march it also does look at the march and how it affects the grandfather and the family. I am not particularly fond of the illustrations in either book. Compared to other illustrators I have written about , these two are not in the league. However the books are not great literary tomes either. They are perfectly serviceable picture books written for a purpose and they do that well!