I have had a lot of fun reading one of my favourite books to my K to 2 library classes this week. I know Book Week has been postponed until Term 4, but I was keen to get started on displays and exploring the theme 'Curious Creatures Wild Minds'. I wanted to start a discussion of this theme using the bunyip, an Australian mythical creature.
I asked the students to draw a creature. They all drew an animal that they could attach a label to. No one drew anything imaginary, extinct, or an amalgam of many animals. When I said, "Is a creature an animal?" The answer was a unanimous, "Yes." "So are you a creature?" Some hesitation, but finally a yes.
Then I asked the students to look at the picture above. "Is this a creature?" "Why do you say that?"
I asked them to make a mental list of three things they could see in the picture. I scribed the long list and there were some very interesting things on the lists, including a mobile phone, lipstick and a magnifying glass. Next, I asked them for one question they would like to ask this creature. There was the obvious like, "What are you?"; "What are you holding?"; "Who are you?" and "Where do you live?" but there was also ones like, "Do you have friends?" ; "Why do you only have three toes?" and "What is on your head?".
Lastly, I asked, "Is this creature curious?" "What makes you say that?" This lead to a discussion of what the word 'curious' meant and after finding out that there are two meanings and that the second meaning is 'strange or unusual' there seemed to be consensus that it was a curious creature.
I then showed the students the cover of the book,
The Bunyip of Berkley's Creek by Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks, the book that won Picture Book of the Year in 1974, forty six years ago. They now knew what the character was, and many students then had anecdotes that they wished to share.
I read the story, slowly and quietly. The first page sets the mysterious tone beautifully. You could hear a pin drop while I read, so few children knew the book. I stopped only once to discuss and explain the sign which has the long words, 'Environment Preservation' and 'Trespassers Prosecuted'.
After reading, in pairs students discussed what they liked about the story and Year 2 pairs also devised a definition of a bunyip eg A bunyip is ... We listened to each others definitions and then amalgamated the pertinent bits to get something like this...
A bunyip is a large mythical creature which lurks (hangs around) in creeks, billabongs, swamps and waterholes.
The Year 2 students had decided that bunyips weren't real, but wanted to know more, so we looked for other books in the library with bunyips and on Kiddle which they had used last term. We found these books:
1. What's a Bunyip? by Nette Hilton and Roland Harvey.
2. Bunyips Don't ! by Sally Odgers and Kim Gamble.
3. Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.
The students thought that Harvey, Gamble and Whatley had all seen Ron Brooks' bunyip, because they too had drawn the bunyip with a tail, floppy ears, a very rounded body and it didn't look overly scary.
If you choose to do this, do not show the students the Kiddle entry before you read the books, because it will give them a different view of bunyips from the one Jenny Wagner intended. It is for further exploration for the students who want to read up on Australian folklore or Aboriginal mythology.
Later I found three more books:
• Out of Nowhere by Tricia Oktober
• Rosie and the Bunyip by Meredith Costain, and
• The Butti Butti Bunyip by Dianne Bates
If there had been time we could have looked at and compared the four bunyip illustrations that appeared on Australian stamps in 1994, one of which was Ron Brooks' Berkley Creek one.
Well we ran out of time, but all the bunyip books were borrowed, some students went off to explore the Indigenous Book Bins and others took from all the unusual animal books that we had on display!
PS. Jenny Wagner seems to 'like' curious creatures! Her novel
The Nimbin is also about an endearing curious creature. It is perfect for primary classes.
Early in my days as the teacher librarian of students between 4 and 8 years old I discovered a series of books from Walker Books called Read and Wonder. No other books in the non-fiction section of the library were like these! They were not like the traditional non-fiction books with photographs, contents pages, an index, headings and subheadings. They looked like story books because they had illustrations. They were written and illustrated by well known authors and illustrators. There were books by Vivian French, Martin Jenkins, Nicola Davies, Dick King Smith, Charlotte Voake and Karen Wallace to name but a few. I could 'sell' them to boys because they were information books and I could 'sell' them to girls because they looked like storybooks.
This term while my library is 'drowning' in curious creatures and my students are exploring all sorts of animals that they want to know more about, these books have once again 'walked out of the library'. A student who had just read Nick Dowson's Tigress came to chat with me about the book and wanted another book 'just like that!' I love it when my job is 'this easy'.
