14th February International Book Giving Day: Library Lovers Day; Valentines Day

Too many things to celebrate today! I gave a book to a family in Bristol taking part in a book swap organised by Zoe Toft. My book from Bristol arrived today so I felt very special, even if I would have liked to know more about the selection criteria for the book they chose. I agonised over what to send them, choosing something recent and quintessentially Australian which I thought they would not have or have seen. I was surprised to see so much Australian art work on the website for Book Giving Day, bookplates from Gus Gordon and bookmarks by Anna Walker because it doesn't seem to get as much promotion here as Library Lovers Day.

It is Library Lovers Day in Australia, a day organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) when it asks library lovers to celebrate with their library. As I wasn't at school in my library today, I visited the NSW State Library with a teacher friend. There were three special exhibits to browse, one on pulp fiction from the past, one the photos from an interesting photo essay book on shopkeepers in Newtown and another on New Zealand's children's author/illustrator, Lynley Dodd which I found endeared me even more to Hairy Maclary and made me wish that I had a three year old with me. A little girl who was there was extremely upset when her mother told her they were leaving to have some lunch...'Don't need lunch!' she was telling everyone within earshot.

We too had lunch in the library where it has wonderful awnings with book quotes written in large print for all to read and then a potter in the shop revealed a card with yet another fantastic quote about books, this time from Napoleon Bonaparte.

         “Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”

 I need to remember this one for the library newsletter.

Then lastly Valentines Day. Not much happening at my place but I've had a very successful display of books in the library, nearly all of which were borrowed. My pinterest page shows some of the titles that  saturated the display. I chose to read Samuel's Kisses by Karen Collum and Serena Geddes to my preschool classes and we had lots of fun talking about who they love, who they want to change and who they were going to blow kisses to.