15th October Worm Day

Last week Australia made a momentous decision to allow same-sex marriage and we were talking in the library about what books we could put out on display to celebrate this. We thought of Worm Loves Worm and the lovely conversation in it about who will be the bride and who will be the groom. Then we went off on a tangent and started chatting about how many picture books had worms as main characters or as the topic. I then thought surely there is a 'worm day' and looked it up. It was on the 15th October and we missed it! So here I am writing it up so that next year we will be well prepared to celebrate it.

These books are in our library and they are perfect for celebrating worms. Firstly picture books:
• Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin and  Harry Bliss
• The Worm Who Knew Karate by Jill Lever and Terry Denton
• Worm  by Nicki Greenberg
• Worm Weather by Jean Taft and Matt Hunt
• I Can Only Draw Worms by Will Mabbitt
• Noodle and Lou by Liz Garton Scanlon and Arthur Howard
•  I Won't Eat That by Christopher Silas Neal
• Superworm by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• Rooting For You by Susan Hood and Matthew Cordell
• Yucky Worms by Vivian French and Jessica Ahlberg
•  The Worm by Elise Gravel


Then there's all the chapter books:
• Snail and Worm by Tina Kugler (series)
• Boobela and Worm by Joe Friedman and Sam Childs (series)
• Marty McGuire Digs Worms by Kate Messner and Brian Floca
• Dirty Bertie Worms by Alan MacDonald and David Roberts
• Yuck's Pet Worm by Matt and Dave
• They Didn't Teach Me This in Worm School  by Simone Lia
• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

Now add some great non-fiction with amazing worm photographs, a book with instructions for making a worm farm, some books on compost and you'll have a great display.

11th November Origami Day

Origami Day was first observed in Japan. It honours the ancient art of creating objects from square pieces of paper.

The origami crane is one of the most recognized origami models around the world.

©bigstockphoto.com/Remains

Origami, which comes from the Japanese words, ori meaning folding, and kami meaning paper, originated in Japan in the 6 century, though for a long period of time the art was preserved for religious ceremonies. By the 17th century, origami had become mainstream in Japanese society and was being used for decorative and ceremonial purposes.

Amazing objects have been made that are indeed works of art, but at school we will be celebrating by making much simpler animals and having the children who are adept at origami teach their peers. When they have made a recognisable animal there is such a sense of achievement. 

We have a large number of books in the craft section of the library which give students ideas about what is possible, but we also have books where origami is central to the story or poetry in the book. Of course we have Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes  in picture book format but there are other picture books as well. See these:

• Newspaper Boy and Origami Girl  and The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army by Michael Foreman

• Origami Heart by Binny

• The Origami Master  by  Nathaniel Lachenmeyer

• Wild Weather  by Thomas Kingsley Troupe (this is one book in a series called Origami Science Adventures)

• Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George and Lauren Stringer

• The Paper Crane by Molly Bang
• Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells 
• Little Oh by Laura Krauss Melmed
• Tree of Cranes by Allen Say (just perfect for the run-up to Christmas)
• Peace Crane by Sheila Hamanaka
• More-igami by Dori Kieber
• Butterflies for Kiri by Cathryn Falwell
• Float  by Daniel Miyares
• The Fog by Kyo Maclear and Kennard Pak
• Mole and the Newspaper by Laurence Bourguignon

and

• Origami, Poems and Pictures  by The British Museum would make a wonderful present as it comes with the paper and it becomes a family reading, viewing and doing activity.

4th November World Numbat Day

What is a numbat? It is a small marsupial that is now only native to Western Australia. It was once found across most of Southern Australia, but now it is in threat of extinction. So on World Numbat Day we celebrate Western Australia's unique mammal emblem and are encouraged to conserve the species. Like many of Australia's smaller marsupials it is threatened by foxes, feral cats and loss of habitat. Project Numbat works tirelessly to promote community awareness. Tomorrow in the library I will put these books out on display to remind the students about this interesting marsupial and its place in our unique fauna.

3rd November Jellyfish Day

Jellyfish Day is  not  a day many people will be celebrating, I'm sure, but at school the Kindergarten classes spend the term exploring things that live in the sea and one of the Kindergarten teachers really has 'a thing' about jellyfish and wanted her class to do some 'jellyfish art'. There is so much on pinterest and the web suggesting art projects for young students and she had decided what she wanted to do, but we had very few books in the library that she could use to research jellyfish with her class. So three years ago I was on a quest to find some. Now the library has these four and all are worth having. The photos in Jellies: The Life of Jellyfish by Twig C. George are superb. Jellyfish  by Mari Schuh has just the right amount of reading for Kindergarten and the the other two Jellyfish by Louise Spilsbury and Jellyfish by Valerie Boden are good examples of information texts for young children.

While looking for jellyfish books though I was surprised to find the library already had five books where a main character was actually a jellyfish. Who would have thought to choose a jellyfish as a character? Not me!