2nd February Hedgehog Day

Hedgehog Day interests me, even though I've never seen a hedgehog,  because they seem so endearing.  This makes them ideal characters in so many children's picture books. Think Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tiggywinkle,  Isaac in Rosie Wellesley's The Helpful Hedgehog series, Little Hedgehog in M. Christina Butler's series of picture books, Horace and Hattiepillar in Hedgehugs or Hedgehog in Jonathan Emmett's Mole and Friends series and Max in Hodgeheg,  the novel by Dick King-Smith.

When I first read these books to classes, I did not have any factual books about hedgehogs in the library and we do not have them in Australia so like me, most of my students had not seen one. It is much easier now to share facts with classes because of the internet and I have purchased some good expository texts, the most recent being from the exemplary Nature Storybook series. It is called Say Hi to Hedgehogs! and is written and illustrated by Jane McGuinness. If you are looking for books to display see here.

1st February Wear Red Day

The first of February is Wear Red Day, a day to think about our hearts and the blood that makes them healthy, but to celebrate,  the books I recommend here have nothing to do with hearts and much more to do with the colour RED. School starts this week for the students I teach and the kindergarten teachers this week have been collecting books for their classroom libraries. Each of the classes has a colour, KRed, KYellow etc and each teacher has a small collection of books about that colour to read and talk about. Some colours are easier to find books about than others, but Red was easy. As well as The Red Book, Clifford, Little Red Riding Hood and The Little Red Hen, here's what I put in their box:

29th January 2019 Curmudgeon's Day

I love the word 'curmudgeon'. I 'm not so happy about what it implies, especially the references to 'old', but many definitions also say 'male' so maybe it is okay. Nevertheless I like the fact that there is a day for them. I have written about this day before here, but there is a new book about to arrive that has a title with more great words to discuss...The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon. It is about young siblings, not cantankerous oldies so it has more to discuss than just the wonderful vocabulary. Can't wait to buy it.

23rd January Pie Day

It's Pie Day  and your chance to eat pie. Meat pies are popular in Australia, but there are lots of others to celebrate too, savoury and sweet.  As a child I enjoyed blackberry picking. It meant my mother would make apple and blackberry pies and I loved them, smothered with custard. As it's a national day in the USA, the pies they think of are generally of the sweet variety, be it lemon meringue, pumpkin, pecan or apple.

The library has so many books where pies are celebrated so I thought I'd list some good ones.

Maybe you could share some of these titles and look at author's purpose using the PIE mnemonic.

18th January Thesaurus Day

Thesaurus Day is held on 18th January because that is the birthdate of Peter Roget the creator of Roget's Thesaurus. He was born in 1779, was a consummate list-maker by 8 years old and went on to be a physician after leaving school and studying medicine at University of Edinburgh. He retired in 1840 and dedicated himself to compiling his dictionary of synonyms that he had begun in 1805. This dictionary was first published in 1852. It was called 'Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition’. It was republished and republished and became very well known and thought of and despite Roget's other achievements it is for this that he is most remembered.

Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet published a spectacular picture book biography of his life, titled The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus in 2014. It is the perfect way to learn about Roget and thesauruses. It also impresses upon readers the power of words and the joy of looking closely at them.

If you can't find this book and you want to look at synonyms through a fun read look for:
• Thesaurus Rex by Laya Steinberg and Debbie Harter

11th January National Milk Day

It is National Milk Day in the US today. It is World Milk Day on he 1st June, it is World School Milk Day in the UK on 25th September and it is Chocolate Milk Day on 27th September. No matter which day you celebrate milk on, there are three different opportunities to do so. I have time to write now so I can prepare a list of books for a display in June when my students will be at school.

I dislike milk intensely and I'm sure it is because we were made to drink milk that had sat in the hot sun curdling, from when it was delivered until we drank it at morning tea time around 11 am. Milk was delivered free of charge to school children in NSW in an endeavour to make sure we all had a daily dose of goodness and calcium. There was no such thing then as flavoured milk and we weren't allowed to put Milo in it.

School children today have a much bigger choice when choosing a milk drink and it is not compulsory to drink it at school. Some of the five year olds I taught last year are such city children that they had no idea where milk even came from other than 'out of the carton'. That was quickly remedied by books, a film  and a visit to a farm where they each had a turn at trying to milk a cow. There were some hilarious photos of these attempts.

It is important for children to know about where there food comes from and to recognise milk as a global food. There is a large variety of non fiction books that do milk and dairy foods very well. Look for:
• Milk from Cow to Carton  by Aliki
• From Grass to Milk by Stacy Taus-Bolstad
• Journey of a Glass of Milk by John Malam
• • From Milk to Icecream  by Bridget Heos

There are fewer stories about milk but these are good ones to look for and they cover a range of ages, include humour and address empathy and point of view well:

• Milk and Cookies by Frank Asch
• Don't Spill the Milk by Stephen Davies and Christopher Carr
• Milk Goes to School by Terry Border
• Fortunately, the Milk  by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
• Chocolate Milk, Por Favor by Maria Dismondy and Donna Farrell