1st June Global Day of Parents

This day recognises the importance of responsible parenting in day to day life and was established in 1994. 

World Parents Day is essential as we honour the most important people in our lives. They nurture and protect the child all the time. This day not only reminds us of the selfless sacrifices our parents made for us, but it also reminds us of our responsibilities towards our parents.

The theme for this year is “Appreciate all parents throughout the world”.

I'm sure the children I teach appreciate their parents, but they do enjoy laughing at the funny things parents do. So here are some books from the library where children get to laugh at parents.

• My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh by Nick Sharratt

• Meet the Parents by Peter Bently and Sara Ogilvie

• Weird Parents by Audrey Wood

• Impossible Parents by Brian Patten

• The Parents are Revolting by Danny Katz

And of course there's always the ever popular

The World's Worst Parents by David Walliams.

9th June Don't ...

Earlier in the year we had a display in the library of books with 'No' as the title. We did it as a joke initially because one of us said, "I wish someone would just say 'no' to these kids!"But, it was a big success. We'd hear the children, even preschoolers reading the titles with all sorts of different intonation. Then this past week we put out all the books in the library that say 'Don't Open this Book'. It was so sweet watching the children go up to the book read the title and prevaricate. Some came to ask if they could. Others tried to peep. Some said I'll borrow this and open it at home. Having only under eight year olds is so nice sometimes!

It was such a success that we then went looking for other titles that gave an instruction starting with 'don't' or 'do not'. Here's what we found and all but three were out of the library by yesterday!

9th August P. L. Travers (1899 - 1996) Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001) Seymour Simon (1931) Nick Sharratt (1962)

Pamela Lyndon (P.L) Travers was the stage name adopted by an Australian actress who was to become the novelist who became famous for her tales about Mary Poppins, an English nanny who perfected a novel mode of childcare. She left Australia in 1924 for London and only returned once for a short holiday, but Australia still claims her as its own, complete with a brass statue of Mary Poppins in a park in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney where her family lived for a while.

Tove Jansson is a Finnish novelist, famous for her Moomin books, stories about chubby, lovable Moomintroll who lives in Moominvalley with his mother, Moominmamma and father Moominpapa. She wrote these books in Swedish but they have been translated into English and in print constantly. This year is the 65th anniversary of the first Moomin book and to celebrate a series of picture books, using Tove's original characters and artwork has been published. The first is Moomin and the Birthday Button. These may lead a new generation of children to the Moomin novels, the most popular being Finn Family Moomintroll. Not many book characters end up with a museum and theme park devoted to them!

Seymour Simon is an American non-fiction author whose books have stunning photographs and just the right amount of text for the children I teach. While most are about science the boys at school particularly like his Trucks and Trains. His website is extremely comprehensive and informative.

Lastly, Nick Sharatt is a British author /illustrator whose brightly coloured illustrations are recognised immediately and they always make you smile. He does 'fun books' and even when he illustrates a novel, such as one by Jacqueline Wilson which has a more serious theme the illustrations are still uplifting. He does the illustrations for Kes Gray's Daisy series and has illustrated books for Giles Andreae, Jeremy Strong and Julia Donaldson as well.