3rd August Watermelon Day

I have written about Watermelon Day before, a long time ago in 2011, but back then there were only two books to talk about and now there are more. In fact on the 1st August a new series of books called See a Plant Grow! was released and one of the books in this series is Watermelon by Charlie Sterling, so just perfect for today.

Beginning readers are introduced to the life cycle of a watermelon. From seed to fruit, each spread follows and labels steps in the plant's development. 

Watermelon Madness  by is another book that has been published since then. It is by Taghreed Najjar.

Noura is crazy about watermelon!
She wants to eat nothing else, every day, at every meal. In fact, Noura thinks there is no such thing as too much watermelon. Until one night, when the watermelon she has hidden in her room to eat all by herself begins to grow and Noura gets taken on a wild watermelon adventure!

The Watermelon Seed  by Greg Pizzoli.

This book introduces us to one funny crocodile who has one big fear: swallowing a watermelon seed. What will he do when his greatest fear is realized? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? This crocodile has a wild imagination that kids will love. 

And two others:

One Watermelon Seed  by Celia Barker Lotteridge

This is the same book as I wrote about in the earlier entry, but it has been reissued with a new cover.

Max and Josephine tend their garden while readers follow along, counting from one to ten as the garden is planted. Then readers can count in groups of tens as the garden is harvested.

And Alex and the Watermelon Boat  by Chris McKimmie

Your library might even have a copy of this book. 100 Watermelons  by Trevor Todd. We don't. It is too expensive.

Come harvest time, the proud Mr. Macaroni has 100 big, round, juicy watermelons. But tragedy strikes as he attempts to unload them. The forklift topples over and 99 watermelons go tumbling down the alarmingly steep sides of William Street causing sticky chaos and sweet confusion. 

1st August Horses' Birthday

In the southern hemisphere, the Horses’ Birthday is celebrated by nearly all breeds on the first day of August. The reason for the selection of the first day of August in the southern hemisphere, as opposed to say the first day of January, May or November is that historically, the weather at the commencement of September is just beginning to warm up, prompting mares to commence their oestrus cycle, or ‘come into season’.  

A mare’s oestrus cycle is stimulated by the presence of extended daylight, nature intending that foals be born eleven months later through spring and summer when feed is plentiful so that mares can produce good supplies of nutritious milk. Therefore, mares successfully bred early in September will produce foals in early August.

Stories about horses are always popular in the library. We even have a few students who go horeseriding.  I have written about horse books before, but we have added new books to the library since then. For what there is see here.

These are some:

• Horses Wild and Tame by Iris Volant

• Gallop! 100 facts About Horses by Kitson Jazynka

• So She Did: The Story of May Wirth  by Simi Genziuk & Renee Treml

• Clare and her Captain by Michael Morpurgo

• The Painted Ponies  by Alison Lester

• Wandering Star by Natalie Jane Prior & Stephen Michael King

• Lucy and Copper  by Mandy Foot

and if you are looking for fun short novels, these two series are worth a look:

Fables From the Stables  by Gavin Puckett and You Freeman (5 books)

• Colin the Cart Horse

• Hendrix the Rocking Horse

• Murray the Race Horse 

• Hayley the Hairy Horse

• Poppy the Police Horse

A Roly-Poly Flying Pony Adventure by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre

• The Legend of Kevin

• Kevin's Great Escape

• Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit

• Kevin vs the Unicorns

 

31st July Avocado Day

I've just picked up the thick brochure you get in the supermarket that is full of recipes and there's a double page spread spruiking Avocado Day and giving recipe suggestions for avocados. We'll be back at school by the 31st so I could get out any avocado books to display. What is there? Well more than I thought. There are a few picture books and I could add any children's cook book with a guacamole recipe, and fruit and vegetable books where they have a presence.

The picture books are:

28th July World Nature Conservation Day Earth Overshoot Day

World Nature Conservation Day is an annual event held on July 28th. This day stresses the need for preserving a healthy environment and natural resources to maintain a stable and healthy society. Saving plants and animals that face the threat of extinction is one of the primary goals of World Nature Conservation Day. Also, the celebrations emphasise keeping the various components of nature such as flora, fauna, energy resources, soil, water, and air intact. In addition, World Nature Conservation Day underlines the need for preserving the environment for future generations. We are therefore tasked with the need to leave a healthy planet for those coming after us to enjoy.

We are observing Earth Overshoot Day also on July 28th. This is a serious day for all of us to reconsider our way of life and usage of natural resources. Our mother Earth can only regenerate resources at a finite rate. But we are utilising it at more than this rate every year. Earth Overshoot Day was introduced to raise awareness about the resource shortage that we are creating with our modern lifestyle. Once the regeneration of resources is at its limit, we exploit what is left of the resources, making the situation even worse. Andrew Simms started the idea behind Earth Overshoot Day to track the ecological resources and services we use from nature.

How interesting that these two are celebrated on the same day. Really, I guess they want the same thing from us, but the wording of Earth Overshoot Day is much more alarming than World Nature Conservation Day. Watching how much curriculum input the students I teach get on sustainability, recycling, climate change etc it is little wonder that they are becoming so anxious so young.

I always think that sharing a picture book as a provocation for discussion is a 'more gentle' way of introducing a topic than facts, figures, dioramas and film clips, because usually they are in a safe setting with an adult they trust and who they know will listen to their concerns and answer their questions.

Last week at school I read Jasmine Seymour's new book to some classes. The CBCA Book Week posters' artwork is hers and the birds and butterflies come from this book. The endpapers are exquisite, depicting Australian flora. I was very surprised to see that my young students had so little knowledge of the flora depicted. They thought the waratahs were roses and couldn't name the flannel flowers despite the fact that so much of the harbour foreshore near their homes has abundant stretches of them along the  bushwalks. I have decorated the library for this term using gum leaves, Australian birds and butterflies, but now I feel the need to share pictures of more flora with them. Time for Plantastic! and any other book that features Australian flora.

 

The shortlist for the Environment Book Awards was published recently. The Wilderness Society who initiated this award and promotes the books' use has as its aim:

We think growing a love of nature in young people is fundamental to becoming a society that values and protects Australia’s unique landscapes, oceans and wildlife.

So on this day, the 28th any of this shortlist would be appropriate reading.

25th July Culinarians Day

It is Culinarians Day! What is a culinarian? Culinarians are experts in the art and science of cooking and serving food. They can be chefs, cooks, home cooks, bakers, and anyone else who is involved in the process of preparing and serving meals.

Culinarians Day was invented as a way to thank all the culinarians who make our experience of eating out fun and special. 

In the library we could have so much fun with displays for this day. We could do biographies of cooks, we could do a display of cookbooks, we could get out all the books about cooking...where would we stop?

Here's a few books I would definitely include:

 

These biographies:

Niki Nakayama

Julia Child

George Crum

Joyce Chen

Hanson Gregory

These two cookbooks:

25th July International Red Shoe Day

International Red Shoe Day, celebrated every July 25, was founded in memory of Australian Lyme disease patient Theda Myint, who passed away from the disease in 2013. Theda Myint died of Lyme disease on July 25, 2013, thus the date. Myint’s disease grew gradually after she was bitten by ticks in Australia, and was exacerbated by a bout of flu she caught while traveling in Europe in 2000.

It was created to raise awareness of the so-called invisible illnesses — physical, mental and neurological conditions that are not immediately apparent to others but can hurt just as much as illnesses with easily visible symptoms. Myint was known for her love of red shoes, which is why the red shoe became the symbol of the day.

While many of my students would not know what Lyme disease is, there are many that seem to be besotted with shoes and having the same shoes as their friends. This worries me, but I guess there is so much shoe choice these days and I am jealous because as a child I had only two pairs of shoes, school shoes and sneakers. A rare school friend had a pair of 'good' shoes too for parties and Sunday School.

There are so many children's books that feature shoes. See here. To celebrate this day though I thought I would just mention those that feature 'red' shoes.

Of course there is Hans Christian Anderson's story The Red Shoes. The library has two picture book versions, but it is not a 'simple' story and is in fact, I think very strange and not really for young children. As is the case in some of Anderson's tales, Karen the protagonist dies at the end of the story. She is 'punished' for her vanity and 'lust' for the finer things. The version with illustrations by Sun Yung Yoo that is in the library has beautiful and haunting artwork.

Simpler and more 'cosy' is the series of books about the hare Ruby, in Ruby Red Shoes. The library has all of these books and a very popular toy to accompany them.

Next look for this, Red Shoes where Malika is delighted when Nana surprises her with a beautiful new pair of red shoes! 

We don't have this one, Lily May and the Ruby Shoes Blues as here in Australia children wear a school uniform and no one is likely to come to school wearing red high heels, but it has the making of lots of good discussion.

And if you are thinking 'outside the box' try this lovely story, The Mermaid and her Shoe is  about one of King Neptune's daughters, Minnow and her quest for answers about a red shoe that she finds.

16th July Cherry Day

Celebrate with cherries! Obviously a Northern hemisphere celebration and a bit hard to do in Australia without paying an exorbitant amount as they are a summer fruit and we eat them around Christmas. We will just need to be settle for reading about them and dreaming. 

Read:

Cherries  by Carrie Gallasch and Sara Acton. It will remind you of summer and cherries in Australia.

Now explain to a child what it means when people say 'Life is a bowl full of cherries!'

Cherry Blossom Day on 27th March is probably easier to celebrate with books as so many books about Japan have cherry blossom as a feature.

18th July Listening Day

World Listening Day is hosted every year by the World Listening Project, a nonprofit organisation that is “devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening and field recording.” They explore acoustic ecology, a discipline that studies the relationship between humans and the natural world as mediated through sound. So quiet down, open up your ears, and get ready to study soundscapes on World Listening Day.

World Listening Day falls on July 18th  to honour the birthday of Raymond Murray Schafer, a Canadian composer and environmentalist who is seen as the founder of acoustic ecology. Born on July 18, 1933, he developed his World Soundscape Project, which laid the fundamental ideas and practices of acoustic ecology in the 1970s. Each year there is a theme. 2022 is Listening Across Boundaries

To make this concept simple enough for young children, I have chosen to just isolate books where the focus is on listening with purpose.

Start with this oldie, but goodie The Listening Walk  by Paul Showers and Aliki

which reminds both adults and kids of the wonders all around them...if they slow down and listen. 

A little girl and her father take a quiet walk and identify the sounds around them. Soon the girl discovers an extraordinary world of sounds in her everyday environment.

Then Listen, Listen by Phil Gershator and Alison Jay

Listen to the sounds of the year - from summer's sizzling sun to winter's crackling snow.

The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Taylor

When you know "the other way to listen," you can hear the wild-flower seed bursting open. You hear rocks murmuring and hills singing, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Of course, it takes a lot of practice, and you can't be in a hurry. Most people never hear these things at all. 

Listen  by Gaby Snyder and Stephanie Graegin

Isn't the world a noisy place?
But what if you
stop, close your eyes,
and LISTEN?

Listen to Our World by Bill Martin Jr, Michael Sampson and Melissa Sweet

Big, small, black, brown-all kinds of animals make their home in our world. From the jungle to the mountains, the desert to the ocean, listen and you just might hear the sounds they make! 

Listen by Holly M. McGhee and Paul Lemaitre

Listen teaches us to engage our senses, to taste, see, and feel in order to engage with the world around us. 

Listen to the Birds  by Ana Gerhard and Cecilia Varela

In addition to lovely illustrations, the book features a glossary of musical terms, a short biography of each composer, and a brief description of each bird evoked or mentioned in the composition.

While not strictly about listening, this book Listen by Shannon Stocker and Devon Holzwarth is about a deaf girl who wanted to play percussion.

As a child, Evelyn Glennie's ears began to hurt. Voices became distant whispers. Ringing phones sounded like muffled crunches in her ears. But when she was told that she would need to wear hearing aids for the rest of her life, Evelyn was determined that this this would never stop her from playing music.

While not about listening to nature, it is about why listening can be important.

How Do We Listen by Jenna Laffin

Listening is a skill we all need. An original song paired with a picture books helps students learn how to listen and why it is important.

Listen Buddy  by Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger . While not about listening to nature, it is about why listening can be important.

What Makes a Lemur Listen by Samuel Langley-Swain

Maki doesn't want to listen until he gets lost in the jungle, where a new friend helps him work on his listening skills. 

And I Have just ordered this, Look and Listen by Dianne White and Amy Schimler because the blurb makes it sounds as if it fits the brief too.

A child steps outside and strolls along, taking in the sights and sounds of nature. Rhythmic, rhyming text tracks his journey through a garden, meadow, and next to a brook, introducing a new color and animal found in that ecosystem with every turn of the page, transforming an ordinary walk into a feast for the senses.