Read Grow Inspire Book Week Slogan 2023 (Part 6) IMAGERY and SYMBOLISM continued

 

Now for more of the ways the word 'seed' is used figuratively...

What do we mean when we say 'he sowed a seed of doubt' ? The Seed of Doubt  by Irene Brugnill and Richard Jones illustrates this adage very well. A little boy dreams of a world beyond the farm where he lives – a world full of mountain ranges, oceans and cities, where he could do anything. But one day he plants a seed from which doubts start to grow. Instead of thinking of all that he could do, he thinks more of what he could not. Can he overcome his fears and chase his dreams?

What are 'seeds of compassion'? In the book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,  The Seed of Compassion he shares stories of his own childhood which highlight this concept. Once an ordinary child named Lhamo Thondup he grew up in a small village in Tibet where his mother taught him about compassion.

What are 'seeds of change'? We hear the saying 'Be the seed. Be the Change' and two books that demonstrate this are  Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson and Sonia Lynn Sadler which tells the story of Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai and next year Nina Laden's new book set in Madagascar, also called Seeds of Change  will look at this metaphor less figuratively as it is not about planting trees, but rather about having the courage and resilience to plant "seeds" that will improve ourselves and our community. It is very poetic

Sow seeds of strength

Ride out the storm.

Sow seeds of compassion 

Make hearts warm.

What about 'seeds of promise'? Teachers hear themselves saying this about a student or situation. In Little Seeds of Promise by Dana Raft and Reina Metallinou, Maya feels very lonely and lost when she moves to new country. Her grandmother has given her some seeds to plant when she gets there, but she wonders about whether to plant them and whether she will ever fit in. Can she risk planting them? 

The Seeds of Friendship  by Michael Foreman explores a similar situation through the eyes of a boy called Adam, yet the title likens seeds to friendship rather than promise.

Can a seed be personified? Read A Seed is Sleepy  by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long; The Bad Seed by Jory John and Pete Oswald or Seed School  by Joan Holub  and Sakshi Mangal and your students will know that it can be.

You can teach figurative language without having to use the books suggested in the English K-2 units online! Their lists are only suggestions.

17th June Eat Your Vegetables Day

The goal of  a day such as this is to have a vegetable with every meal, and to also have a vegetable as a snack during the day.

If you’re a parent, you might want to get your kids, particularly fussy-eater ones who baulk at their vegetables to help with preparing, cooking or buying some vegetables or even  doing some craft using food. 

Read Off to Market  by Alice Oehr before you make a shopping list.

Read Eating the Alphabet  or Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert or a recipe book like Every Color Soup before you cook.

Look at books such as The Potato People , I Spy Food, and One Potato  and then have some fun with food.

There are so many picture books now where foods are heroes and personified that reading about vegetables with children is easy. Have you seen the Supertato books by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet, Runaway Pea by Kjartan Poskitt and Alex Wilmore, Dinosaur Juniors by Rob Biddulph, Vegetables in Underwear by Jared Chapman, the Peas Series by Keith Baker, Rot by Ben Clanton or the Food Group books by Jory John and Pete Oswald. In these books vegetables have fun! 

There are two series for beginning readers to read  themselves too... Cookie and Broccoli and Wedgieman. 

If you are looking for other books about vegetables look here.

19th August Potato Day

Potato day is celebrated on August 19th every year to appreciate this incredibly versatile and delicious veggie. The celebrations are done on a very large scale in the United Kingdom and America.

Of course I have written about Potato Day before, but eleven years ago Supertato books didn't exist and now they are the mainstay of any Prep library. There would be very few children under eight who do not know Supertato. And Potato Day at our school will morph into a big celebration of Supertato books.

"The Supertato books are hilarious and fun-filled adventure stories, packed with bright and bold illustrations. Children and adults alike adore the wacky Supertato characters. Kids love searching for the Evil Pea lurking in the supermarket aisles and the silly humour in the stories. Adults love the fact that children are introduced to new vegetables, not to mention the fact that the books are great fun to read aloud!"

In these books the caped potato superhero is fighting to save the world from his arch-villain -- the Evil Pea, so fighting and adventure in vegetable guise. 

The Supertato books are written and illustrated by Sue Hendra and her husband Paul Linnet and they have been so successful that there is now more than ten titles. (Suzanne Francis Hendra born 15 August 1973) is a British writer and illustrator of over seventy books for children. You can meet Sue Hendra and hear her read the first Supertato book here. You can meet both Sue and Paul and their book Supertato Bubbly Troubly here. They are very silly and entertaining and they read their Book Day title which we don't get here in Australia. I'd love the plush veggies they have to make a great display in the library. What a pity they are British. They would make the ideal author visit!

Add some  activities such as How to Draw Supertato, colouring in sheets and the myriad of ideas for finding a potato and making your own Supertato and you'll have plenty to celebrate Potato Day.

Parents often wonder where to go next when their child has read all the Supertato books and won't read anything else. I send them off to explore other Sue Hendra titles, the Runaway Pea series by Kjartan Poskitt and Alex Willmore and the Food Group  series by Jory John and Pete Oswald. Some of my Year 2 boys also like the graphic novels Super Potato series by Artur Laperla. We don't have the whole series and  students ask me to buy more. I'm mean. I make them wait till they are at the Junior School Library and they are in Year 3. The genre, the vocabulary and the content including Dr Malevolent make them more appealing to older students. I tried to find out more about Artur Laperla because I felt sure it was a pen name, given 'laperla' is a kind of potato. The internet tells me he is from Barcelona and has other series which are not about potatoes and they still have him as the author. So?

If you are short of potato books for a display or just want to be reminded or inspired look here for what you could have.

If you want a good source of child level information look here. It might be fun to make some lists of all the ways potatoes are served up, all the  adjectives that can go in front of potatoes, verbs you can use to describe what you are doing to potatoes...bake, slice, chip, grate, fry, mash...etc

And if you want to smile on Potato Day read Tulip and Doug by Emma Wood and Carla Martell.

Looking for a Book Week costume or something for an older child? My Life as a Potato by Ariane Costner could fit the bill.