25th June Day of the Seafarer

The Day of the Seafarer (25 June) was established  2010 to honour the vital contribution that seafarers make to global trade and the economy, frequently at considerable personal sacrifice to themselves and their families.

In 2023, the campaign will look at seafarers' contribution to protecting the marine environment. They spend a great deal of time at sea and are a big part of the solution when it comes to protecting the marine environment. 

'Seafarer' is not a common word and not one that young children are likely to use in their everyday speech unless they know someone who is a seafarer. You can define a seafarer as literally being someone who is employed to serve aboard any type of marine vessel. It is their job to work on boats and they are paid to do so.

Here for my purposes, today's blog will highlight ships and boats, rather than the people who work on them. Young children borrow books about trains, planes and boats from the library. I have written about planes and trains before so today it is time for boats to shine. The library has a good collection of books about boats and stories that feature boats. See the Pinterest page.

My son was boat mad as a child and is still boat mad as an adult. He is now a marine mechanic and spends every day on boats. I watch in awe as he parks a very large motor boat in what seems like a tiny space or explains how the multiple boat engines work.

His favourite book was Salty Dog by Gloria Rand and when it came to giving his picture books away that one had to stay. He took it on sleepovers, he took it as a teenager when he went to babysit to read to his charges. I was pleasantly surprised to see it is still in print and available to buy. The owner of Salty Dog is a boatbuilder who gets the ferry to work everyday, sometimes taking his dog, but not always which does not please Salty.

He would have liked Whose Boat?  by Toni Buzzeo and Tom Froese too because it is a guessing game where you match up workers with their boats.

He would have loved Boats Fast and Slow  by Iris Volant and Jarom Vogel if it had existed when he was young. This book allows children to learn about the history of boat building, about famous boats and technological advances. 

I remember reading Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain by Edward Ardizzone to a Year 2 class who were looking at life in their grandparents' time. This book had been reissued for its eightieth anniversary. The students sat riveted as I read and at the end we talked about the differences between their lives and Tim's. While they could see that it was a great adventure they were nervous when only Tim and the Captain were left on the ship. The thing that worried them most was that he had gone on an adventure alone without parent permission, but then students said things like well so do the children in the Famous Five and Secret Seven series. It made for a great discussion and many questions to ask grandparents.

My favourite boat books are 'slower and calmer' as I am not a boat lover.  Little Bear's Boat and Big Bear's Boat  by Eve Bunting and Nancy Carpenter epitomise what it means to be happy with your lot.

A Kindergarten boy who visits the library asked me about tug boat books. Initially I wondered what I would give him, but now I know there are some:

Little Tug by Stephen Savage, I'm Mighty  by Kate and Jim McMullan Boats are Busy by Sara Gillingham and Anchored by Debra Tidball and Arielle Li will make a good start and they are all in our library.

In 1933 The United States Congress established National Maritime Day to honor the important contributions of the maritime industry. The date of May 22 was chosen to commemorate the 1819 voyage of the steamship Savannah from the United States to England, which marked the first successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by steam power. I haven't written about this day before either so if you want to save your boat and ship display till May you can.

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” So says the Water Rat to Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows.” While this has become a cliche, for some young children and even adults, boats do hold a great fascination and there is nothing better than messing around in boats!

6th February Lame Duck Day

I was reading today and happened to notice that it was Lame Duck Day and that made me think that I hadn't written about ducks or Duck Day on this blog. Of course being a Lame Duck has very little to do with ducks, but given how many picture books feature ducks I got to thinking about them. Well there's Rubber Ducky Day ( January, 13th), Donald Duck Day (June, 9th) and even Dead Duck Day (June, 5th) but there does not appear to be World Duck Day or International Duck Day. What a shame. There are so many endearing ducks in picture books, starting with my all time favourite Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.

The children I teach are aged between four and eight so their introduction to 'ducks' in picture books is usually a version of Five Little Ducks,  but very quickly they move to the series about ducks that we have in boxes in the library. There is
• Daisy Duck by Jane Simmons
• Duck and Goose by Tad Hills
• Baby Duck  by Amy Hest and Jill Barton
• Duck in a Truck  by Jez Alborough
• Sarah and Duck by Sarah Gomes Harris
• the madcap duck in What is Chasing Duck? in the Giggle Gang by Jan Thomas
• the zany Katy Duck by Alyssa Satin Capucilli and Henry Cole
• Duck Duck Dinosaur  by Kallie George and Oriol Vidal
• Duck Duck Porcupine by Salina Yoon.

Of course there's other ducks to fall in love with such as
• Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell and Helen Oxenbury
• Just Ducks  by Nicola Davies and Salvatore Rubbino
• Alexander in Alexander's Outing by Pamela Allen
• Ben and Duck by Sara Acton
• The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese, and the newer
• Duck!  by Meg McKinlay and Nathaniel Ekstrom
• I'm a Duck  by Eve Bunting and Will Hillenbrand
and if you are looking for a serial for this age group there's always Meg McKinlay and Leila Rudge's
• Duck For a Day  and Definitely No Ducks
And if this isn't enough duck books, look here.

7th - 14th February Marriage Week

The week before Valentine's Day is designated Marriage Week. Once I would have thought that wasn't of interest to students under 8, but how wrong would I have been? A while ago one of the preschool classes spent a whole week planning, preparing for and conducting a wedding and reception in their room and the playground. They were so involved. They made invitations, decorations, placecards, the script for the celebrant and designed the outfits using the dress-up box clothes. I even got an invitation to the wedding so I made a gift and went along. The teacher asked me for some books to share with the children so I went looking in the library. We had some but not a lot, so I have added a few more since then. I especially love The Rabbit's Wedding but some of the newer ones have people as characters rather than animals. How to Get Married, by Me, the Bride and Lilly's Big Day will make you smile. The Perfect Flower Girl  is a good choice because it is the story of a Lebanese Muslim wedding and Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding will give you a Chinese perspective. The others cover things that are important to the children, such as being a flower girl or what to do at a wedding. I have quite a display being planned in my head for the end of this week, Love, Kisses, Hugs and Weddings ... so many great picture books to choose from, just as soon as Pancake Day and Umbrella Day are over.

21st October Apple Day

Apple Day is an annual celebration, held in October, of apples and orchards. It is celebrated mainly in the United Kingdom where it is Autumn and harvest time. The first Apple Day was held in 1990. Given that the Granny Smith green apple originated in Australia in 1868 and apples are popular as snacks in Australian school lunchboxes we should celebrate it here too.

Apples and their place in our language and life could make for some interesting discussions with children, even a whole unit of study. Look at how many sayings there are. Just some that come to mind:
• an apple for the teacher
• an apple a day keeps the doctor away
• that apple didn't fall far from the tree
• rotten to the core
• you are the apple of my eye
• don't upset the apple cart
• don't let one rotten apple spoil the whole barrel.

Scrolling through my library catalogue there were more than thirty picture books which highlighted apples. Some were sheer celebrations of the apple such as Apple by Nikki McClure and Little Apple: A Book of Thanks by Brigitte Weninger; others such as The Apple Trees by Vivian French, One Red Apple by Harriet Ziefert, Apples Apples Apples  by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, From Seed to Apple  by Anita Ganeri and Apples Grow on a Tree by Mari Schuh explain the lifecycle of apples in an illustrated format suitable for young readers; some tell the benefits of and how to make apple pies (Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie; How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World) and yet others are just great stories for young children to enjoy and marvel at.

The most recent acquisition that sent me on this search for an Apple Day is The Apple Orchard Riddle  by Margaret McNamara and Brian Karas. I bought this because their earlier book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? had been such a success with the teachers and this story is also about teacher, Mr Tiffin and his class, and in it they go on a trip to an orchard and learn a lot about apples while trying to solve a riddle as well.

Other stories that I have shared with preschool or kindergarten classes to great effect are:
• Mr Brown's Magnificent Apple Tree  by Yvonne Winer and Maya Winters
• A New House for Mouse by Petr Horacek
• Red Panda's Toffee Apples by Ruth Paul
• The Very Helpful Hedgehog by Rosie Wellesley
• The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern
• The Apple Tree by Lynley Dodd
and two picture books with more 'meat' and things to talk about
• Hubert and the Apple Tree by Bruno Hachler and Albrecht Rissler
• One Green Apple by Eve Bunting and Ted Lewin. This story also features an excursion to an apple orchard, but the main character here is Farah, a Muslim immigrant who is new to the class.

5th - 11th August Homeless Person's Week

Homeless Persons' Week (HPW) is an annual themed week coordinated by Homelessness Australia.  It is used to raise awareness of people experiencing homelessness and the surrounding issues. It is held in the first full week of August each year. And while it is not a topic I would usually embrace explicitly with the young children I teach there are books that I might read to and discuss with them that highlight how important it is to have a home. While talking I might also touch upon how important it is to have a private place, a space that you can call your own, and how for many people, children included this is difficult because of the home they live in. It may be overcrowded, under-resourced, lacking in adult supervision or just too temporary.

These books do some of these things:
• Way Home  by Libby Hathorn and Gregory Rogers. This classic prize-winner was published after Margaret Wild and Gregory Rogers' Space Travellers which also dealt with homelessness, but this time the 'aura' of the book was much more convincing. A young boy Shane appears to be wandering the city streets at night. He finds a cat and takes it home with him. Home, as you find out at the end of the story is a makeshift cubbyhole. The tenderness Shane shows to the cat highlights what being 'human' is about and gives the reader hope. The illustrations are rich visually and choosing one of the double page spreads would make a good stimulus for a See Think Wonder routine or the Making Thinking Visible routine that looks at what comes before and after this picture.

• Flyaway Home  by Eve Bunting and Ronald Himler tells the story of a young boy and his father who live in an airport and have to keep moving from terminal to terminal to avoid being noticed. The boy observes a trapped bird who finally finds freedom and this gives the boy hope for the future. So just like Shane who reaches out to the cat, this boy empathises with the bird.

• Broken Beaks  by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and Robert Ingpen. This is the story of friendship between a sparrow and a homeless man who suffers from a mental illness. It uses the metaphor of broken beaks to explain disabilities.
It is interesting that like the two stories above that need for love and being with other living things is also highlighted through friendship with an animal.

--Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE; Founder the Jane Goodall Institute; UN Messenger of Peace

"Enchanting, moving, and beautifully written. Broken Beaks is a brilliant way to help young children begin to understand the tragedy of the homeless."

• Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams, Khadra Mohammed and Doug Chayka. This story is set in a refugee camp in Pakistan where families are waiting to be resettled. When some clothing is delivered two young girls find one sandal each and would like to find its partner. In the process Lina and Feroza meet and begin to understand the meaning of sacrifice and friendship. 

• One Hen by Katie Smith Milway and Eugenie Fernandes. In this story of a young Ghanian boy, named Kojo, he is not homeless, but extremely poor. With a small loan he buys a chicken and then sells his eggs and thus becomes able to sustain himself and eventually others. This inspiring story shows children what can happen with hard work, the desire to change and help given for the right things. It is also based on a true story and the real-life story of Kojo is at the back of the book.

•Scrawny Cat by Phyllis Root and Alison Friend. This story is much more lightweight than the others, but very suitable for a discussion about home and being homeless with very young children. Here a lost, scrawny, and hungry cat finds himself alone in the world after having once been loved by someone who scratched behind his ears and used his name. Now he is lonely and everyone just tells him to 'get out of here'. Finally he finds someone who takes him in.

13th January Michael Bond (1926) Rubber Ducky Day

Michael Bond is the English author who gave children Paddington Bear. The first story A Bear Called Paddington was published in 1958 when Bond was a cameraman with the BBC. The idea for the story started with a bear that Bond had bought his wife because it looked lonely on a shelf in a London shop. Paddington became very popular and a merchandising phenomenon. Paddington is easily recognisable no matter who illustrates him, and there have been many, and whether he has a red, blue or or even yellow hat. The toys and books seem to go through phases. They are either in big demand or sitting idle. Maybe it depends upon whether he is on television at the time and whether or not new editions have just been released.

However in my library, Michael Bond is better known for his series about a guinea pig called Olga than for a bear called Paddington. More readers become addicted to these books. Once a child, usually a girl, reads The Tales of Olga da Polga she usually comes back wanting another book about Olga and then she works her way through all six of these, and then often moves on to Betty G. Birney's series about Humphrey.

Rubber Ducky Day seems like an unusual day to be marking, but when you read about all the uses rubber duckies have assumed since they were invented it is little wonder that they have a day of their own. Sesame Street character, Ernie has a rubber ducky that is immortalised in song. Charities have races where they are purchased, let loose and then observed over a distance to see which one wins. This idea probably comes from an incident that occurred in the Pacific Ocean during a storm on January 10th, 1992. A cargo ship transporting them for a Chinese company lost 29000 rubber ducky toys overboard. Months later these ducks began to turn up all over the place. Some even made it to Australia. Eve Bunting used this event as the impetus for her book Ducky, illustrated by David Wisniewski and then Eric Carle also used it as the impetus for his book 10 Little Rubber Ducks. Obviously rubber ducks should have a high profile!

during a Pacific storm on January 10, 1992, over 29,000 rubber ducky bath toys from a Chinese company were during a Pacific storm on January 10, 1992, over 29,000 rubber ducky bath toys from a Chinese company were washed off of a cargo ship.washed off of a cargo ship.during a Pacific storm on January 10, 1992, over 29,000 rubber ducky bath toys from a Chinese company were washed off of a cargo ship.

19th December Eve Bunting (1928)

Eve Bunting was born in Northern Ireland and moved to the United States with her husband and family in 1958. She started writing after doing a writing course in America and since then has written over 200 books. She writes for a large age range and about a broad range of topics. There is an interview with her here. At this time of year there are many Christmas titles to choose from. Try Night Tree; Cricket Christmas and We Were There. Each of these gives a very different perspective to Christmas from the books we usually read at this time of year. The last two look at insects and their view of Christmas. Have you ever thought about the scorpion or cockroach that were in the stable at the time of the nativity?

Australian author, Libby Gleeson talked about her daughters' reading at a conference I attended and she mentioned how one of her daughters had particularly liked I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert (see the trailer) and I thought how nice that was because I particularly like that book too. In my library as well as this one the three other Eve Bunting books that are the most borrowed are:

* Secret Place illustrated by Ted Rand . This is the story of a family of ducks who a boy finds hidden among the concrete city. A good book to compare and contrast with Colin Thiele's The March of Mother Duck and Narelle Oliver's Home.

* Sunflower House illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. This book is used by Year 1 as part of a unit of work on growing and lifecycles.

* Pop's Bridge illustrated by C.F.Payne. I bought this book this year for our Book Week unit on bridges. It is the story of two boys who have fathers who are part of the team of workers building the Golden Gate Bridge.