12th -20th September NSW Bike Week

The weather here has been superb. It is Spring and you just want to be outside doing things. On the weekend the Festival of the Winds was on in Bondi. It is NSW Bike Week  from Saturday, 12 September until Sunday, 20 September and there are children in parks, at the beach and on the move. Hopefully it will still be like this in a week's time when it is school holidays. When I think of Spring at school I like to read Will Hillenbrand's Spring is Here to my preschoolers. It is one of the books in the series about Bear and Mole. Coincidently there is a title about kites, Kite Day and another title in the series about bike riding  is Off We Go! Here Bear is encouraging Mole to give up his training wheels. This too is the premise in other titles about bike riding (see list of titles below). 

I am often asked by parents for books about bike riding because their child is fearful and unwilling to take risks. I recommend Jeanne Willis' Don't Let Go! which hasn't failed me yet. Here a little girl persuades her father to teach her to ride a bike. She has all the trouble with balancing and speed control that every learner remembers - but at last she is whipping down the path in the park screaming: 'It's all right - you can let go now!' 

I notice that there has been a number of new books which feature bicycles lately including Byron Barton's My Bike, Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bike by Chris Raschka and two more about bears on bikes, Bike On, Bear! by Cynthia Liu and Bear on a Bike by Hannah Shaw which is coming soon.

I like to share two books set in Africa with older children who take having a bike for granted,  Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams and My Rows and Piles of Coins with fabulous illustrations by E.B.Lewis.  These two show how for a child without a bike the yearning for the freedom that comes with a bike is paramount.

And don't forget Mulga Bill's Bicycle. Read it with gusto and explain the history of it and penny farthings.

30th April International Jazz Day

International Jazz Day is a yearly event on 30 April, organized by UNESCO to celebrate “the virtues of jazz as an educational tool, and a force for peace, unity, dialogue and enhanced cooperation among people.” The day was proclaimed during the UNESCO General Conference in November 2011.

Once I would have said that jazz music wasn't something my students were interested in, but I haven't had too much trouble getting them to borrow books such as these:

• Ben's Trumpet  by Rachel Isadora

• This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt

• The Jazz Fly by Matthew W. Gollub
• Sheep's Jazzy Jumper by Carrie and David Grant

• My Two Grandads by Floella Benjamin

and all the wonderful biographies that are part of the library's picture book biography collection:

• Dizzy  by Jonah Winter ( the story of Dizzy Gillespie)

• Mister and Lady Day by Amy Novesky (the story of Billie Holiday and the dog who loved her)

• The Little Piano Girl by Ann Ingalls and Maryann MacDonald (the story of Mary Lou Williams)

• Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter (the story of singer Josephine Baker)

• Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by Chris Raschka

• Before John was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane by Carole Boston Weatherford

6th March Michelangelo (1475 -1564) Chris Raschka (1959) Dentist Day

Lots to celebrate. Firstly the great Michaelangelo, painter of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. There are not a lot of books about him that are suitable for very young children. Diane Stanley's is worth a look though.

Secondly, today is the birthday of American author/illustrator, Chris Raschka, this year's Caldecott Medal winner. He won this time for his book A Ball for Daisy. Chris is the master of the powerful story with minimum text. Here he explores the joy and sadness that having a special toy can bring. It will be good to share when children are dealing with the loss of a special possession.

And thirdly, Dentist Day. Is it coincidence that it comes so soon after Tooth Fairy Day? Nearly every favourite character that has a series of books has a dentist story. See Dora, Berenstain Bears, Maisy, Curious George and Peppa Pig! But, there are stories with much more to marvel at and ponder on. Look for:

• Margaret Mahy's The Dentist's Promise

• Robert Munsch's Andrew's Loose Tooth

• Judi Barrett's Never Take a Shark to the Dentist and there is always

• Shel Silverstein's poem The Crocodile's Toothache

6th March Rose Fyleman (1877 -1957) Chris Raschka (1959)

Mice

I think mice

Are rather nice.

Their tails are long,

Their faces small,

They haven't any

Chins at all.

Their ears are pink,

Their teeth are white,

They run about

The house at night,

They nibble things

They shouldn't touch

And no one seems

To like them much.

But I think mice

Are nice.

~ Rose Fyleman

Rose Fyleman has always fascinated me. She seemed to be so good at so many things. She sang professionally, studied singing in France and Germany, translated German and French books into English and wrote very rhythmic poetry. She is probably best known for her fairy poems, but I love her poem Mice even though I don't like mice. The children are always amazed when I can recite it without the words in front of me. Does it really hurt to know a few poems off by heart? Maybe it is because my teachers made me learn poems off by heart and have a separate poetry exercise book that I love poetry!

Chris Raschka wasn't born until after Rose Fyleman had died, but he has already made his mark, and like her is multitalented. He plays the viola, writes and illustrates, and his book A Poke in the Eye is an anthology of concrete poetry so there is a poetry connection as well. He won the Caldecott Medal in 2006 for Norton Juster's The Hello, Goodbye Window. It is not one of my favourite picture books, but if you haven't seen The Purple Balloon it is worth a look. This book has a simple text and very gentle illustrations but it tackles a difficult theme in a way that offers reassurance to children dealing with death and illness. It is always hard to talk to young children about difficult times in their lives so it is good to have a few good resources that you can use as starting points.