27th February Birds

Hard to believe we've been back at school already for over a month. The time has flown. There seems to be so much to do at the beginning of a school year. Over the last six months or so I seem to have bought so many picture books that feature birds and so many of them have simply outstanding illustrations. It got me thinking about how many books we already had in the library about birds so we decided to turn the library into an aviary to start the year's displays. It has been amazing. The teachers at school think it odd because they know I don't like birds, that is real birds. I'm quite scared of them since I had a magpie in the library and he couldn't get out. However I really like pictures of birds. They make for great illustrations, greeting cards, posters, sculptures etc so it was easy to decorate the library. I used some old books as my initial focus to sort out the wording to accompany the display -

• Have You Seen Birds?  by Joanne Oppenheim and Barbara Reid. Like all of Reid's books this uses wonderful plasticine collage for the illustrations but my children do not engage with the text.
• Birds, Birds and More Birds by Matt Cosgrove
• Birds  by Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek. My preschool teachers love this book.
• Birdsongs by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins. Perfect for having fun with the noises birds make.

I put out all the old favourites such as Edward the Emu; Edwina the Emu; Olga the Brolga; Enoch the Emu; Samantha Seagull's Sandal; Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus; Leonardo Pigeon of Siena; Pidge; Jeremy; Waddle Giggle Gargle; How the Birds Got their Colours; The Birdwatchers; Vuture's View; Condor's Egg; Owl Moon; Owl Babies; The Owl Who was afraid of the dark; Feathers for Phoebe; The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay; Puffling; Little Owl Lost; Mozzie and Midgie and King of the Birds.

The library also has two beautiful biographies about two prominent bird lovers which we featured:
• The Boy Who Drew Birds  by Jacqueline Davies and Melissa Sweet. This is the story of John James Audubon
• For the Birds by Peggy Thomas and Laura Jacques. This is the the story of Roger Tory Peterson

And then all the new ones. I have put All I Said Was by Michael Morpurgo first because it is a great book to start a discussion about birds and their characteristics because in this story a boy wishes he was a bird, becomes a pigeon and then experiences the consequences of the change.