22nd January Blair Lent (1930 - 2009) Brian Wildsmith (1930) Tony Bradman (1954)

Three birthdays! Firstly, Blair Lent, the American illustrator of Arlene Mosel's classics Tikki Tikki Tembo and The Funny Little Woman and Elphinstone Dayrell's African folk tale Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky. Some sources say his birthday is the 20th, others 22nd and I have no way of confirming which at the moment.

The next birthday is the English author illustrator, Brian Wildsmith who was born on the same day, but is still alive. His illustrations are so very different from Lent's, mainly because his trademark is bold colour. Like Eric Carle was doing in America, Wildsmith was creating a brightly coloured very inviting collection of books. He grew up in a mining village where everything was gray and he wanted to see colour. He has said, "I believe that beautiful picture books are vitally important in subconsciously forming a child's visual appreciation, which will bear fruit in later life." If you want to be bombarded with wonderful illustrations and colour go to Google's Wildsmith images and revel in just how many there are. I would love to visit the museum in Japan that is dedicated to his work and where over 800 of his original artworks are on loan. It is hard to single out books of his...there are so many...but today three:

1. Cat on the Mat because it is the book that every child should learn to read on. It does exactly what you want...has very strong picture text ties...it is repetitive...it uses high frequency sight words and most importantly it looks like a real book, not a reader.

2. Professor Noah's Spaceship because it is clever and puts the story of Noah in a modern context where pollution is a problem. And

3. Animal Gallery because it has superb illustrations with some very novel collective nouns. The last in the book is a 'dray of squirrels' very fitting as yesterday was Squirrel Appreciation Day. He also has a book called Squirrels, but unfortunately it is out of print.

And, lastly English author Tony Bradman. He is responsible for so many wonderful stories that have been published as bridging novels by Orchard books. The children in my library have learned about King Arthur, Robin Hood and Beowulf from him. They have laughed while reading his Happily Ever After series of twisted fairytales and recently they have discovered Tom who is the main character in the Creaky Castle books.

27th August Arlene Mosel (1921 - 1996) Sarah Stewart

American professor of library science, Arlene Mosel wrote two picture books in the 1970s which are still read by children and librarians. They are written as folktales, but whether or not they were actually based on Chinese or Japanese folktales is now debatable. This aside the well known Tikki Tikki Tembo and Caldecott Medal winning The Funny Little Woman, both illustrated by Blair Lent, are still in libraries and early childhood classrooms and children enjoy their improbability and dramatic plots. The long name of the older brother, Tikki Tikki Tembo rolls off the tongue and has children parroting it very quickly. Kindergarten are fascinated by a name that long!

The debate surrounding Tikki Tikki Tembo centres on the fact that people of Chinese heritage worry that readers may see this story as being fact or being representative of Chinese culture. Rather than not read it at all, I feel it is better to be very clear to present the story as a dramatic family story that is not factually correct and one that was written in a different time when travel and knowledge of other cultures was not what it is in our culturally diverse communities.

It is also American author Sarah Stewart's birthday. I don't know when she was born, just that it was on this day. It is fitting too, that one of her books that is well known is The Library, a story about Elizabeth Brown who just loves books. A fitting tribute to librarian Arlene Mosel! I love the illustration from the cover of it, done by her husband David Small that has been turned into a book mark. It is also a fitting end to Book Week! We had a wonderful Book Week at school, finishing this morning with a Book Week Expo where each class went to all the other classrooms to see what that class had done for Book Week. I have photos and hope to write more about it soon.