31st December Pele (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) 1940 - 2022

It would have been good to be at school this week. My Year Two boys loved Pele and reading about him. They were surprised that wasn't his real name and read to find out more about why he had the name Pele. 

Ten years ago my Year 2 boys would read anything about soccer including stories, but those that I teach now are much more interested in the players than the game and many of them don't even play soccer on the weekend. When the World Cup is on we always do a display and get all the soccer books out, but this time it was so late in the year that borrowing was winding down and students wanted books about individual players such as Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo.

If you are looking to buy Pele biographies for your library these four are very popular with my young readers:

Pele, King of Soccer  by Monica Brown & Rudy Guttierrez 

Young Pele; Soccer's First Star by Lesa Cline-Ransome & James Ransome

Pele  by Maria Isabel Sanchez 

For the Love of Soccer  by Pele & Frank Morrison

29th December Summer

It's Summer   

 

Take a trip to the beach where you'll find the best sandcastles ever built, fish and chips for lunch, lots of boats and a few perfect waves.

In my last blog I was bemoaning the Summer weather, but then it came good and now today it is very overcast again. When it was warm and sunny with brilliant blue skies and glistening sea I began thinking about which picture books epitomise Summer in Australia. They need to include the beach, swimming, doing nothing, cicadas, flies, mosquitoes, blue bottles, seagulls, picnics, cherries, mangos, zinc cream, sunburn, cricket, camping, fishing, outdoors, barbecuing... Of course they could include drought and bushfires, but I'm not including those here. I came up with this list. My childhood summers were a cross between Perfect  and Magic Beach as I grew up on the South Coast of New South Wales in a rural idyll like the farming area depicted by Freya Blackwood, but spent my school holidays at Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay at my grandparents' rental cabins so experienced the wonders of the beach depicted in Magic Beach  by Alison Lester.

Why I Love Summer by Michael Wagner and Tom Jellett *

Sunny days, weekends at the pool, games in the backyard, daylight until late and long, lovely holidays . . . that's summer, the best season ever.  

Summer by June Factor and Alison Lester *

Celebrate a special summer’s day and all that it brings: changing weather, family gatherings, lots of fun and . . . Christmas! 

Summer Time by Antonia Perenti and Hilary Bell *

Summer is here. Put your school shoes away, 
The long, lazy days can begin. 
Mangoes and magpies, municipal pools… 

Perfect  by Danny Parker and Freya Blackwood *

On a perfect day, the hours stretch endlessly ahead. Scribbling with chalk, running with kites, digging for shells ... paddling, climbing, dreaming. 

Greetings From Sandy Beach by Bob Graham *

The story of one family's camping holiday at the beach.

Magic Beach by Alison Lester

Visit a perfect beach where you can swim, surf, splash through the waves, build sandcastles, beachcomb, explore rock-pools, muck about in boats, fish from the jetty, and build a bonfire under the stars. 

Summer Blue by Trudie Trewin and Marjorie Crosby-Fairall

Marley and Moses lived in a place where the heat crept up and smothered the days in stifling stillness. And it stayed and stayed. A captivating story of a searing Australian summer and waiting for the welcome relief of rain.

Little Dog and the Summer Holiday by Corinne Fenton and Robin Cowcher

The summer holidays stretch out forever. Little Dog and his family set off with their caravan. A nostalgic and delightful story about the way family holidays used to be. 

Two Summers by John Heffernan and Freya Blackwood

Rick is coming to visit the farm again. But will he recognise the farm? Will he have as much fun as last time? Same friend. Same farm. Totally different landscape.

Australia at the Beach by Max Fatchen and Tom Jellett

A story of sun, surf, picnics, fish and chips, and one-legged seagulls. This is how one Australian family spends Australia Day at the beach, from packing up the car to getting dumped by a wave, playing beach cricket, and coming home sandy and exhausted.

Not a Nibble  by Elizabeth Honey

Holidays at the beach mean camping, swimming, finding crabs, feeding the seagulls, walking, reading. Everyone has plans for things to do.

Of course there's many other Australian picture books that could be on this list such as The Deep by Tim Winton, A Swim in the Sea by Sue Whiting, Jetty Jumping *  by Andrea Rowe and two that are no longer in print Mr Plunkett's Pool by Gillian Rubinstein and Sunny Faces  by Jeri Kroll. The cover of this last book shows children's faces that are slathered in zinc cream just like ours were and this illustration really makes me smile. Unfortunately I can't find a picture to show you and the book is at school and I'm at home. The books marked with an * are on Story Box Library if you don't have a copy in your library. Other books about summer can be found here.

21st December The Solstice

As I sit here pondering the longest day of the year and the lack of summer weather, my daughter is about to embark on a walking holiday in Scotland on the shortest day of the year. Is she mad or intrepid? The idea of walking in snow is too much for me, but I know that if you live in the Northern Hemisphere you cannot let the weather dictate your every move. You put on warm clothes and wet weather gear and go out! Where I live there isn't much need for this and we just complain if it is too wet or too hot, flooding or in drought.

The morphology of the word solstice fascinates me. I knew 'sol' was Latin for 'sun', but had to look up the rest... 

The ancients added sol to -stit- (a participial stem of sistere, which means "to stand still") and came up with solstitium. Middle English speakers shortened solstitium to solstice in the 14th century.

I looked up 'solstice' books and found this is coming next year. Sounds perfect.

Just two times each year - an event called the solstice - Earth leans closest to our home star, the Sun. Since ancient times, people have used the Sun as a timekeeper. They knew that the length of daylight changes in a regular way and celebrated the solstice as a signal of changing seasons. The Longest, Shortest Day imparts scientific and cultural information using the global experience of a solstice as its scientific core, and the descriptions of children's lives at each latitude as the cultural narrative. It is a browsable nonfiction appealing to informationally minded thinkers aged 7-11. Enhancing the text and illustrations are fascinating infographics about geography, hours of sunlight, sunrise and sunset times, and how the Earth's tilt creates solstices and seasons. A global event needs a global perspective: non-traditional families, interesting facts that crop up in each account (e.g. in the Chinese entry we learn that pandas need to play or else they get sad). Plus, illustrators for each location represent their home countries with authority and beauty. 

It is easier to celebrate the Winter solstice with picture books and craft, probably because it is at Christmas in the Northern hemisphere and very noticeable. The thought of making lanterns excites me.

Here's some and look at who the authors are: Susan Cooper, Harriet Ziefert, Jean Craighead George and Marion Dane Bauer.

And a couple for the Summer solstice

  

And of course there's lots of separate titles that celebrate Winter and Summer. Perhaps I need to look at books about Summer ready for when school starts again...if we do have some summer weather.

21st May International Tea Day

International Tea Day is observed annually on 21st May according to the United Nations.The concerning resolution was adopted on December 21, 2019 and calls on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to lead the observance of the Day. An International Tea Day has been celebrated on 15th December, since 2005, in tea producing countries like India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Uganda and Tanzania.

I have not written about tea on either of these dates before, so I am writing now in the hope that I will remember to celebrate it in the library next May. I want to celebrate this day because there are so many books to pull off the shelves for a display.

Factual books first:

•Teatime Around the World  by Denise Waissbluth and Chelsea O'Byrne

Let's go on an adventure to discover new cultures and friends through tea! In this fun and lyrical picture book for ages 4-8, you  will learn how tea is enjoyed in Thailand, Japan, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Uruguay, South Sudan, India, and more countries!

• The Story of Tea  by Alex Woolf

• The Tale of Tea  by Shalini Vallepur

 

Let's have a tea party!:

Series such as Fancy Nancy, Angelina Ballerina, Pinkalicious, Mr Putter and Tabby and Madeline all have a tea party book.

• Tea Party Rules  by Ame Dyckman and K.G.Campbell

• The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi

• Daddy Lion's Tea Party by Mark Sperring and Sarah Warburton

• Sun and Moon Have a Tea Party by Yumi Heo

• The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

• No Dragons for Tea  by Jean E. Pendziwol and Martine Gourbaldt

• Tea With Rex  by Molly Idle

• Squishy McFluff: Tea with the Queen by Pip Jones and Ella Okstad

• Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang and Hyewon Yum

•  Phoebe Dupree is Coming to Tea by Linda Ashman and Alea Marley

• Ash Invites Her Friends to Tea by Fu Wenzheng

• Fu Finds His Way by John Rocco

• Chimpanzees for Tea  by Jo Empson

• How the Queen Found the Perfect Cup of Tea by Kate Hosford and Gaby Swiatkowska

• Teatime by Tiffany Stone and Jori van der Linde

While not strictly about tea, but rather the train that brings tea to the outback, they are perfect for this time of year.

• Tea and Sugar Christmas  by Jane Jolly and Robert Ingpen

• The Shop Train  by Josie Wowolla Boyle

Then look for these short novels:

• The Giants' Tea Party  by Vivian French

• Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party by Megan McDonald

• Tea Party Parade  by Nick Sharratt 

• Mr Monkey and the Fairy Tea Party by Linda Chapman

• Maybelle Goes to Tea  by Katie Speck

• Cloud Tea Monkeys  by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham

If you don't care for tea, but are enamoured of teapots, look for these:

13th December World Violin Day

A couple of years ago I wrote here about books to use in celebration of World Violin Day, but new books have been added to the library since then, so I want to mention these here.

• Violin and Cello by Catherine Greer and Joanna Bartel

Two children live next door to each other. They are practising their instruments and can hear each other. I will be putting this out in a display at the beginning of the year when Year 2 students need to decide whether they want to play the violin or the cello.

• Itzhak: the Boy Who Loved  the Violin  by Tracey Newman and Abigail Halpin

This biography tells the story of Itzhak Perlman, a boy who loved music, who begged his parents for a violin and went on to become one of the world's most famous violinist.  

• The Dance of the Violin  by Kathy Stinson and Susan Petricic

This biographical picture book tells the story of Joshua Bell's experience when he enters a violin competition and asks if he may start again. A very positive message for young performers.

And two we don't own, but which look like they might be good additions:

• Family Dynamics by Courtney Vowell Woodward and Thu Vu, and

• The Violin Family  by Melissa Perley and Fiona McLean