22nd October Nut Day

On 22nd October it is Nut Day, a day to celebrate nuts and all they have to offer animals, including us, nutritionally. This is not easy to do in schools as so many students have nut allergies. Some students are allergic to peanuts only, Peanut Day is the 13th September, but there are lots of other nuts. How many can your students list? Read April Pulley Sayre's Let's Go Nuts! and make a list.

Looking through the library catalogue for books about 'nuts' I realised that if I exclude the peanut books and the peanut butter books then what I was left with are mainly about nuts and squirrels and the nuts are acorns.

I love oak trees and acorns. I spent many hours as a child collecting acorns and making acorn people and boats and I would have dearly loved to see a squirrel run down the branches of the oak trees, but I live in Australia so no squirrels. That doesn't mean though that there cannot be a 'nut' book display and a cuddly toy squirrel set amongst the books.



Start with the classic Chicken Licken, Chicken Little or Henny Penny, where an acorn falls on a chicken's head and he runs off to tell the king that the sky is falling. Silly, but good fun with all that poultry following him without questioning the initial premise. Then there is a lovely new book by Lou Peacock and Yasmeen Ismail simply called Nuts! which takes sharing and quarrelling to a new level.


If you still want others with squirrels:
• We Need More Nuts! and Please, No More Nuts! by Jonathan Fenske
• Aw, Nuts!  by Rob McClurkan
• The Nut Stayed Shut by Mike Henson
• The Nutty Nut Chase by Kathryn White and Vanessa Cabban
• Scruffle-Nut by Corinne Fenton and Owen Swan
• Nuts to You!  by Lois Ehlert
• Nuts to You  by Lynne Rae Perkins (illustrated novel)

Without squirrels:
• I Want that Nut! by Madeline Valentine ( mouse and a chipmunk)
• Oh, Nuts! by Tammi Sauer and Dan Krall (chipmunks)
• Nuts in Space by Elys Dolan (an elite crew of furry animals)
• a series by Eric Litwin (of Pete the Cat fame)and Scott Magoon
The Nuts: Bedtime at the Nut House (Hazel and Wally Nut and family)
The Nuts:Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants
The Nuts:Keep Rolling!

11th October International Day of the Girl

It is school holidays here, but I wish it was a school day because today is International Day of the Girl and my students and parents who are wealthy and educated still seem to need to be convinced at times that there is a gender gap. I have mothers saying to me, "Please don't let my boy borrow a pink book"; "Please don't let my girl borrow anymore building books"; "Do you have books that are boys' books?"; " My daughter loves Princess in Black,  what pink princess books could I borrow for her?"

This is in a country where women are more highly educated than men at the moment, but fewer of them are in leadership roles. This is at a coeducational school where the students have amazing opportunities and choices.

I am constantly putting together displays to counteract intrenched views. The library has an amazing collection of picture book biographies and picture books that feature girls and science, but today I would have put together a small display of books that encourage girls to be themselves, befitting this year's theme - GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable.

                      

I give every baby girl born to friends, a copy of Global Baby's Girls  and  a copy of one of Dream Big  by Joyce Wan or Baby Feminists  by Libby Babbott-Klein.













The display in the library would include these books:

      

Go girls!

16th June World Smell Day

World Smell Day is actually celebrated on the 16th June each year and it is not a day I knew existed until last week. While doing the bulk loans for next term I was surprised by how many books had the word 'smelly' in their title and I began to think about pulling them off the shelf and putting together a 'smelly' display. Having done this I then went looking to see if such a day existed and it does.

World Smell Day was first celebrated in 1988 and founded by Dr George Dodds. This year the hope of World Smell Day was 'to introduce you to the world of scents, aromas, odours and miasmas and encourage you to take a special interest in the many pleasurable smell sensations which come our way - and, perhaps, in actually training your nosing ability!'

Most of the books I have found for my display, however do not celebrate pleasurable smells, but rather the more unpleasant ones, that the children love to read about. There's the smelly

• the old favourite  The Smelly Book  by Babette Cole
• any book about Judy Moody's brother Stink, but start with Stink It Up! A Guide to the Gross, the Bad and the Smelly  by Megan McDonald
• the three picture books by Mark Chambers about Brian the Smelly Bear
• Dirty Bertie by Alan MacDonald and David Roberts, but start with the two picture books by David Roberts and then look for Pong.
• then there's the dog stories Smelly Louie by Catherine Rayner; My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks  by Hanoch Piven; Smelly Bill  and Smelly Bill Stinks Again by Daniel Postgate; and  The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog by Margaret Read MacDonald
• Smelly Socks by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko
• Smelly Peter the Great Pea Eater by Steve Smallman
• Mo's Smelly Jumper  by David Bedford
• Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup
• What's That Awful Smell?  by Heather Tekavec
• The Day the Smells Went Wrong by Catherine Sefton
• Mr Tripp Smells a Rat by Sandy McKay and Ruth Paul
• The Children Who Smelled a Rat by Allan Ahlberg
• You Smell and so does everything else by Clive Gifford

Then there's the stinky
• My Stinky Dog by Christine Roussey
• Stinky! or how the beautiful smelly warthog found a friend  by Ian Whybrow
• Stinky by Eleanor Davis, a title from the wonderful Toon series.
• all the Sir Charlie Stinky Socks series of books by Kristina Stephenson
• all the Stinky Cecil series by Paige Braddock. Start with Stinky Cecil in Operation Pond Rescue
• one title in  the Sir Scallywag series Sir Scallywag and the Battle of Stinky Bottom by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul
• one title in the Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast series The Case of the Stinky Stench by Josh Funk and Brendan Kearney
• one title from the Pig and Fox series  A Pig, A Fox and Stinky Socks by Jonathan Fenske 

• introduce yourself to the Cosmic Colin by Tim Collins series by reading the first book Stinky Space Race
• introduce yourself to the Hound Hotel series by Shelley Swanson Sateren  by reading Stinky Stanley.
• introduce yourself to the Stinky and Jinks series which features Benjamin Jinks and his grumpy hamster Jasper Stinkybottom by David Lowe by reading book one My Hamster is a Genius
• do some science experiments with Stinky Science: Why the smelliest smells smell so smelly by Edward Kay
• Stinky Skunks and Other Animal Adaptations by Barbara Taylor
• Stinkiest! : 20 Smelly Animals  by Steve Jenkins

and the whiffy!
• A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk: A Forest of Poems by Joan Rankin
• Hey, What's that Nasty Whiff? by Julia Jarman and Garry Parsons
• and there's the three wonderful stories about Whiffy Wilson by Caryl Hart. Start with Whiffy Wilson the Wolf Who Wouldn't Wash.

I told you there were a lot of books! If you want one that has some less unpleasant smells, read Anna Fienberg's gem, The Magnificent Nose. Think of all the wonderful aromatic words that will be added to a child's vocabulary while exploring these books.