6th May Bruce Appreciation Day

I was reading through a lighthearted calendar pertaining to the Pastafarians and they said today was Bruce Appreciation Day, but looking further I found a website saying it is National Bruce Day on 14th May. It doesn't really matter when it is I'm celebrating today. 

Bruce is my mother's maiden name and we were lead to believe that it is a Scottish name, but Bruce, or Brus, was a name introduced to England in the massive migration wave from Normandy during the Norman Conquest of 1066. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, its roots are outside the British Isles.

Here's two ways to celebrate:

1. Do a Bruce  display. Start with Mother Bruce who is a character created by Ryan T. Higgins.

This is the first book in a series about Bruce.
Bruce is a bear who likes living alone and making fancy gourmet recipes he finds on the internet. But when the goose eggs he's cooking for breakfast hatch, Bruce becomes something new- a mother.

Look at Ryan Higgins website and see just how many books there are about Bruce. Our library has nine  of the 11 titles.

2. Display books by Australian author illustrator Bruce Whatley. He has so many wonderful books to explore, more than 70.  You will know his series about Mothball, a wombat that he has illustrated for Jackie French. He has another series where he has collaborated with Jackie French. Each of these books features an extreme weather event eg. Cyclone; Flood; Plague; Fire.  There is the series about Billy, a bilby that he has done with Nette Hilton and Danny daVinci  which he did with his wife, Rosie Smith.

If you don't like these ideas, or if your students are older, you could also celebrate author Bruce Pascoe.

Annette Macarthur-Onslow (1933 -2026)

Yesterday while reading the Sydney Morning Herald I noticed that Annette Macarthur-Onslow had died. She was the author illustrator of a book I loved during my childhood.  It is called Uhu and tells the story of a small tawny owl rescued by the author in the Cotswolds who then goes on to cause havoc for its carers. It was originally published in 1969 and won the Children's Book Council award for Book of the Year in 1970.

Amazon are selling a copy for $159, so I was pleased I hadn't discarded the library's copy. Abe Books has a new copy for for well over $200.

The art in this book is extraordinary and because of the length of the text it is not a picture book for very young children. The language is descriptive and  the vocabulary quite challenging, but it is 'just right' for upper primary students and owl lovers.

10th May Mother's Day

 

• Miimi and Buwaarr, Mother and Baby by Melissa Greenwood

An ode to the mother/baby relationship and ties to family and land. Join Miimi (Mother) as she shares stories with her Buwaarr (baby) about the environment, language and totems; passing on the wisdom of Gumbaynggirr culture and a mother's hopes for baby's future.

Yesterday my very zealous library volunteer put together a display of books for Mother's Day. And, it had the desired effect, many of the books have already been borrowed. Given that the students who frequent the library are under eight years old, you can imagine what most of the books are like. They are simple, have minimal text and have mums who are beautiful, amazing, magnificent, superheroic, all manner of good things even if they are quite stereotyped.

I remember a lecturer at uni saying to my children's literature class that  so many 'good' picture books finish with 'food' and it is usually a very nurturing mum who supplies it. Think Where the Wild Things Are and The Elephant and the Bad Baby. 

The other stereotypical mother in picture books is the all-giving, self-sacrificing, forever-rescuing mother such as in Hazel's Amazing Mother by Rosemary Wells . Do all mothers need to be omnipresent and hovering? Many of my young readers think they should be. They comment if they don't see or hear from the mother in the story.  As children age and begin to read middle-grade novels, the mother is much more likely to have abandoned the children or is just absent because this allows the author much more room for conflict and adventure.

I think the books I like best for Mothers' Day are the ones that show 'real' mothers who would love nothing more than five minutes peace, such as Mrs Large would like in Five Minute's Peace; an obedient, well-behaved child such as the mother in Harriet You'll Drive Me Wild!;  a mother who has a very flexible and loving child such as the daughter in Saturday. The books need real mothers in all their messy variety!

These do that:

•My Mum by Anthony Browne

'She's nice, my mum,' with its picture of an ordinary woman in a flowery dressing gown.

• The Kinder Hat  by Morag Loh and Donna Rawlins

Jesse makes her mother a hat from an ice cream container at school. She expects her to wear it on their walk home and Mum does despite all the strange looks.

• Tucking Mummy In  by Morag Loh and Donna Rawlins

Mummy is so tired she falls asleep on Jenny's bed, so Sue and Jenny tuck her in for the night.

• Tisha and the Blossom by Wendy Maddour and Daniel Egneus

Tisha is told to 'hurry up' all of the time. But hurrying up all the time can be exhausting. Thankfully, Tisha's Mummy knows a special game to help them all slow down when everything becomes too much . .

• Imani's Moon by JaNay Brown-Wood and Hazel Mitchell

Imani is a young Maasi girl with a loving, storytelling mother and a desire to do something great. When she decides she wants to touch the moon, she works hard to reach her goal, even in the face of teasing from the naysayers around her.

• Well Done, Mummy Penguin by Chris Haughton

While dad is caring for the child,  the strong mother is off finding food and proving that she would do anything for her family.

• The Ocean Gardener by Clara Anganuzzi

Ayla and her marine biologist mum live on a beautiful tropical island, surrounded by a coral reef, but when a problem arises Mum and Ayla work together to find a solution. 

• The Kid Whose Mother Kept a Possum in her Bra by Dianne Wolfer

A young girl just wants to be normal like her friends. And, more importantly, she wants her mum to be normal - like her friend's mums - they don't have kangaroos in the kitchen or possums in their bras.

And if you can find it, this really makes me laugh. The children give mum, who is a mechanic some pink fluffy slippers as a present. She keeps trying to lose them because they do not fit her image.

• Pink Fluffy Slippers  by Maureen Sherlock and Craig Smith

Mothers may be the backbone of their families and communities. They are also often the primary caregivers and that means they are the gateway to learning and books for children so for my young readers it is more than okay for mothers to be amazing and for them to take a book home to read with their mother that tells them they are!

My mum is beautiful because she points out tiny things in books to me.

Mums find your lost treasures. They celebrate your achievements. They love us no matter what.

This little girl's mummy makes cakes as big as a rocket and chases the night-time monsters away. Butterflies come and listen when she sings, and the sun always shines when she wears her favourite dress.

I think my mummy's MAGIC - I notice every day . . .
That whenever MAGIC happens, Mummy's never far away!

Mum runs for the bus so fast it feels like flying, uses her super strength to carry her son's boots, coat, bag AND scooter, and can make bumps and bruises better with just a kiss. This mum really does have superpowers!

Mum is a brilliant artist, she can balance on a tightrope, she can swim like a fish, do amazing stunts on a bike and she can tame wild animals ... in fact, there's very little this astounding mum can't do.

30th April International Sculpture Day

30th April is International Sculpture Day. It is also my daughter's birthday and from a very young age we would be in a park or public space and she would always point out the sculptures. They fascinated her. A favourite sculpture for both of my children was the pears at the National Art Gallery in Canberra. I shouldn't be surprised then that they share a day. What does surprise me though is that I haven't written about this day on this blog before, given that I have so many books listed on my Pinterest page.

Pear—version number 2 (1973) by artist George Baldessin.

Sculpture is the art of making two or three-dimensional forms that can be representative or abstract. The artist uses shaping techniques to create a form, like firing clay, carving stone or wood, casting metal or plaster, etc. 

13 Sculptures Children Should Know introduces children to some very well-known sculptures, by sculptors such as Michelangelo, Rodin, Giacometti and Louise Bourgeois. Many of these sculptors appear in picture books suitable for young children.

Alternately, you could look at more general sculpture books such as these:

• Look! Look! Look! at Sculpture  by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace           After sneaking into a museum, three tiny mice discover that sculptures can be big or little, textured or smooth, and made with different materials. Some stand alone, others are in a group, and still others move. The mice look at the front, the back, and the sides of a slate sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. They see shapes, and shapes within shapes. They think, feel, and then create their own sculptures. 

• Scrap Metal Swan  by Joanne Linden and Estrellita Caracol

When community members work together with trucks and ships to clean up the town's riverfront, an artist and her child hammer, chisel, weld and zap the found materials into something beautiful. Young makers will find inspiration in this text for their own sculpture.

• Claymates  by Dev Petty and Lauren Eldridge

What can you do with two blobs of clay? Create something amazing! But don't leave them alone for too long. Things might get a little crazy. Watch the claymates squish, smash, and sculpt themselves into the funniest shapes they can think of.

• Reassemble by Tatsuya Tanaka

Miniature workers are busy at work, disassembling and reassembling familiar everyday objects. At first, they just look like discarded parts of something we may or may not recognize. But how about when the workers put everything together? Don't the reassembled parts resemble something else you know?

• Apart, Together by Linda Booth Sweeney and Ariel Rutland

This bold, surprising picture book demonstrates the magic of everyday transformations (and introduces cause-and-effect) .

Read about some famous pieces of sculpture here:

• David by Michaelangelo

• Leonardo da Vinci's Horse 

• Patience and Fortitude, the lion statues at the front steps of the New York Library.

• The story of The Statue of Liberty

• The Little Blue Hippo statue that is is on display at MOMA

• Degas' Little Dancer

• The rooster weather vane on Notre Dame

There are also quite a few picture book biographies too.

• Alexander Calder

• Louise Bourgeois

• Yayoi Kusama

• Ruth Asawa

of course there are other books worth sharing, but what our library has is a very good introduction to sculpture.