1st November Dinovember

Dinovember was started by Susan and Refe Tuma. They started this celebration 'because in the age of iPads and Netflix, we don’t want our kids to lose their sense of wonder and imagination. In a time when the answers to all the world’s questions are a web-search away, we want our kids to experience a little mystery. All it takes is some time and energy, creativity, and a few plastic dinosaurs.' These plastic dinosaurs get up to mischief while their children are asleep. Each day of November they wake to discover what the dinosaurs have done during the night.

This activity is now being celebrated in other people's homes, public libraries, school libraries and classrooms. At this time of year my school is very busy with end of year activities so it is not possible for me to do it full-scale with classes in the library or library lessons, but dinosaurs are super popular with my young audience, so we have decided to promote a dinosaur book every day during November. It would be good to have the picture books that these parents have subsequently produced to start it off, but unfortunately we do not have them.

As well each week we might produce anew dinosaur havoc such as this one.

We have decided on a twist to this idea. On a table we will have the plastic dinosaurs out to play with and they will be 'fighting' over a book. The students will be able to 'rescue' the book if they want to borrow it. The library is only open Monday to Thursday so we will only need eighteen books.

Today preschool classes come to the library and as Penny Dale's dinosaur books are very popular with them they will be on display for them to borrow. Each day after that we will change the book on display. If that author has more dinosaur books and the original is borrowed, it will be good because there will be replacements.

Day 1 Penny Dale

Day 2 Paul and Henrietta Stickland

Day 3 Martin Waddell and Leonie Lord

Day 4  Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-Rees

Day 5 Janeen Brian and Ann James

Day 6 Julia Donaldson and David Roberts

Day 7 Chae Strathie and Nicola O'Byrne

Day 8 Jason Cockcroft

Day 9 Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

Day 10 Linda Bailey and Colin Jack

Day 11 Gabby Dawnay and Alex Barrow

Day 12 Matt Robinson

Day 13 Bob Barner

Day 14 Lily Murray and Richard Merritt

Day 15 Zoe Ingram

Day 16  Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe

Day 17 Julia Liu and Bei Lynn

Day 18 Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds

Day 19 John Condon and Steve Brown

Day 20 Sean Taylor and Zehra Hicks

Day 21 Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

Day 22 Chris Gall

Day 23 Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter

Day 24 Ryan T. Higgins

Of course there are more dinosaur books than this, but all of these are currently available. And of course you could use nonfiction dinosaur books. Some titles that are out of print but are always popular are:

1st November Authors Day

Do you have a favourite author? If so today is a day day to revisit them and their works. I am constantly asking the children I teach to take more notice of the author's name on books they read so they can tell me whose books they like. Unfortunately, they are much more likely to remember the colour, size, picture on the cover, characters and plot details. I am hoping it is because they are still young, under eight and preoccupied with the joy or information that comes from reading. 

When I do ask, 'who is your favourite author?', of course I get answers such as Dr Seuss, Ahn Do, Aaron Blabey or Dav Pilkey. This tells you where they're at. Often they turn the question back to me, and I explain that I have many favourites and it depends on the day they ask...Bob Graham, Jess Keating, Kate DiCamillo, Steve Jenkins...the list goes on.

Authors Day is an annual observance that encourages people to recognise and celebrate the contributions of authors to literature and culture. It’s a day to express gratitude to authors for their creativity and dedication to storytelling. It's a day to thank authors for what they do. Go on, write a letter to an author! tell them how much pleasure (or angst) they have brought you.

With children, it is also a day to celebrate them as authors, and encourage them to write or make a book. Schools use all sorts of commercial programs to teach writing, but there are also picture books that highlight writing and stories and how they work. 

Recently I purchased, Little Red and the Big Bad Editor by Rebecca Kraft Rector . It made me laugh, but it also gives a great insight into writing and what it requires. To celebrate Authors Day we will have a display of all the books that promote writing, books such as

• The Best Story  by Eileen Spinelli    

• It's a Story, Rory!  by Frances Watts

• Look I Wrote a Book!  by Sally Lloyd Jones

• How this Book Was Made by Mac Barnett

• One-Stop Story Shop by Michelle Robinson

• Little Red Writing  by Joan Holub    

• Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon

• Any Questions  by Marie-Louise Gay

• A Perfectly Messed-Up Story by Patrick McDonnell    

• This is the Path the Wolf Took  by Laura Farina

• Amy the Red Panda is Writing the Best Story  by Colleen A F Venable

• Idea Jar by Adam Lehrhaupt and Deb Pilutti

• This Book has Alpacas and Bears  by Emma Perry

• Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills

• I Want to be in a Scary Story by Sean Taylor 

• Dreams of a Pencil  by Xiaonan Zhang  

• Written and Drawn by Henrietta  by Liniers

• The Whisper by Pamela Zagrenski

• Violet and Victor Write the Most Fabulous Fairy Tale by Alice Kuipers

• Bearnard Writes a Book by Deborah Underwood

• A Squiggly Story by Andrew Larson

• Another Squiggly Story  by Andrew Larson

• The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane Auch

• I am a  Story by Dan Yaccarino

• Dragons Eat Noodles on Tuesdays  by Jon Stahl

• How to Write a Story  by Kate Messner

• Untitled  by Timothy Young

31st October Doorbell Day

On October 31st, National Doorbell Day will have doorbells ringing more than any other day of the year. The day recognises the little buzzer, unique tones, and rings that alert us to visitors to our doors every day of the year. And, of course on Halloween the doorbell will be rung more than usual, in fact more than on any other day of the year. 

Joseph Henry invented the first electric doorbell in 1831 and during the Great Depression, J. Ralph Corbett invented doorbells that feature different chimes. 

Of course, we can celebrate this day with Halloween picture books, but I want to draw your attention to books that are specifically about or feature doors, knocking and or doorbells.

Probably the most well known is The Doorbell Rang  by Pat Hutchins which looks at all the visitors sharing a plate of freshly cooked cookies.

And there is a lovely new book titled Knock Knock  by Catherine Meatheringham and Deb Hudson which takes the onomatopoeic word knock and gives it in other languages as well. 

There are others. This is what I can think of, but I'm sure there are others...

• Knock Knock Who's There?  by Sally Grindley and Anthony Browne

• A Visitor for Bear  by  Bonny Becker and Kady MacDonald Denton

• Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev and Taeeun Yoo 

• Who's That Knocking?  by Alison Lester

• Who's at the Door?  by Jonathan Allen

There's a series of Knock Knock books by Carol Hart and Nick East...pirate, dinosaur, superhero, alien...

There are a number of books with Knock Knock  in the title that are riddle books.

Think about how many fairytales have door knockers ie. characters who knock on a door ...the wolf in The Three Little Pigs;  Jack in  Jack and the Beanstalk  when he visits the giant; Hansel and Gretel;  the bear in Snow White and Rose Red.

PS. 

26th October Pumpkin Day

Tomorrow is Pumpkin Day, a day that probably has more significance in the  Northern Hemisphere because there, it is time to harvest pumpkins, but they are very visible here in the Southern Hemisphere because it will soon be Halloween and pumpkins play a big role in Halloween festivities. I have written about this day before, but not for a long time. 

We have a lot of books in the library that feature pumpkins! We have quite a few nonfiction titles because of life cycles and growing, both popular areas of inquiry in Early Childhood Education and a lot of fiction because of Halloween. So this is the time to go all out with a pumpkin display in the library. See what the library has on Pinterest here. There are some fun craft and art activities here to.

Best nonfiction:

Lifecycles and pumpkin information:   

  

• From Seed to Pumpkin  by Wendy Pfeffer             

• Pumpkins  by Robin Nelson

• Pumpkin  by Brenda McHale

• Pumpkins  by Jacqueline Farmer

• Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie by Jill Esbaum

• From Seed to Pumpkin by Crystal Sikkens

• Let's Look at Pumpkins  by Katie Peters

• Pumpkins  by Jacqueline Farmer

• Pumpkin Circle  by George Levenson

• Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie by Jill Esbaum

Halloween non-fiction:

•  Making a  Jack-o'-Lantern: step by step  by Angelique Johnson

• The Story of the Jack O'Lantern  by Katherine Kegan

• Halloween  by Laura Marsh

• Halloween  by Pierre-Marie Valat 

And most importantly fun fiction:

• How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?  by Margaret McNamara and Brian Karas

• We Planted a Pumpkin by Rob Ramadan

• Five Little Pumpkins by Ben Mantle (there are other versions)

• Christopher Pumpkin by Sue Hendra, Paul Linnet and Nick East

• The Pumpkin Who was Afraid of the Dark by Michelle Robinson and Mike Byrne

• Pick a Pumpkin  by Patricia Toht and Jarvis

• Pumpkin Eye  by Denise Fleming

• Pumpkin Trouble  by Jan Thomas 

And some short chapter books:

• Lottie and Dottie Grow Pumpkins by Claire Burgess

• Invisible Inkling Dangerous Pumpkins  by Emily Jenkins

• Nelson Pumpkins and Aliens  by Andrew Levins 

• Andy Shane and the Pumpkin Trick by Jennifer Richardson Jacobson

• The Pug Who Wanted to be a Pumpkin  by Bella Swift

• Pumpkin Power  by Patricia Cleveland-Peck

• The Pumpkin Project by Katie Smith