21st April Tea Day

”You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
~ C.S. Lewis

There is nothing nicer than a good read and a cup of tea. So celebrating Tea Day is a must. Tea is not something children give a lot of thought to, because very few of them actually drink tea, but so many children's picture books feature tea. At the very minimum they finish with and 'they all had tea'...it is a warm, secure, happy, family feeling to finish with. Think of The Elephant and the Bad Baby at the end where everyone goes back to the baby's home and his mother gives them tea and pancakes. Think of Alfie Gets in First and how after the problem of the locked door is finally solved everybody sits down for a cup of tea. Yes, these books are old but the pattern continues and now there are even stories with tea in the title.

Many years ago when I started teaching I did a lengthy integrated social science unit called 'What's in a cup of tea?' and my Year 5 class and I explored the tea industry, the sugar industry and the milk industry for a whole term. What fun it was and given my knowledge now of children's literature I would have had plenty of good books to add to it. What a shame the current curriculum doesn't allow for such tangents or flights of fancy anymore.

Below are covers of books in our library that feature tea parties, cups of tea or the importance of tea. The Biography of Tea pictured above gives a comprehensive history of tea and its role in many cultures.