Curious Creatures, Wild Minds

When the CBCA announced this slogan for Book Week I did wonder how I was going to explain it to and enthuse my under eight year old audience in the library. 'Curious' is a word I use with them quite often and I know that they like to use that word. It is good that it has two meanings.

1. eager to know or learn something  & 2. strange or unusual     
Then if we add 

synonyms: for 1. inquisitive: intrigued; interested

for 2: odd; peculiar; unusual; bizarre; weird; eccentric    

We then have quite a lot to work with. I have had fun collecting books to put together a display. I added the 'wild' from wild minds to make half of the display to be a collection of books that explore unusual wild animals. I started with questions like

• What is an okapi?

• What is an axolotl?

• What is a pangolin?

• What is a tenrec?

• What is uakari?

• What is an ibex?

• What is an aye-aye?

• What is a wonga-wonga?

and then I realised there are so many animals I could add to this list. Just look in books such as 

• Weird and Wonderful Animals  by Rosella Trionfetti and Cristina Banfi

• The World of Weird Animals Series  by Jess Keating

         Pink is for Blobfish

         Cute as an Axolotl

         Gross as a Snot Otter

         What Makes a Monster?

• Who are You Calling Weird?  by Marilyn Singer and Paul Davis  

• Weird Animals  by Mary Kay Carson

• Lesser Spotted Animals by Martin Brown

• Even More Lesser Spotted Animals by Martin Brown

• Who Am I? by Steve Jenkins

• Tenrec's Twigs  by Bert Kitchen

And for those very mixed up animals, read:                                

• Hello Hello  by Brendan Wenzel

• The Wild Fluffalump by Mwenye Hadithi

• Greedy Zebra by Mwenye Hadithi

• Call Me Gorgeous  by Giles and Alexandra Milton

See more on Pinterest here.