9th March Crab Meat Day

Over 1.5 million tons of crabs are eaten all over the globe every year and I guess that is why there is a day to celebrate that fact. However there is no day set aside to just celebrate live crabs which I think is sad, given how many children's picture books feature crabs. So here, this day is about crabs, not the 'meat' they provide seafood connoisseurs with.

While there are some amazing factual books in the nonfiction section of the library (595.3) there are also so many crab stories. Probably the best known are Eric Carle's and Julia Donaldson's books about hermit crabs, but you will be surprised to see just how often a crab features as a main character.  

See:

• A House for Hermit Crab  by Eric Carle

• Sharing a Shell  by Julia Donaldson

• Herman Crab by Peter Helliar

• Tiny Crab is a Tidy Crab by Paula Bowles

• Clem and Crab  by Fiona Lumbers

• Tip Tap! Went the Crab by Tim Hopgood

• Don't Worry Little Crab  by Chris Haughton

• I'm Fabulous Crab  by Nicki Greenberg

• Koko and the Coconut by Turia Pitt

• The Crab Ballet by Renee La Tulippe

• Crab Moon  by Ruth Horowitz

• One is a Snail Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre

• Fish and Crab  by Marianna Coppo

• The Selfish Crab by Anya Glazer

• Crab Cake  by Andrea Tsurumi

• How the Crab Got His Claws by Rosie Dickins

• Mr Clownfish, Miss Anemone and the Hermit Crab  by Sean E. Avery

• Crabbing with Dad by Paul Seden

• Joshua and the Two Crabs  by Joshua Button

• Hector the Hermit Crab  by Katie Boyce

• This is Crab by Harriet Evans

• Clumsy Crab by Ruth Galloway

• Bad Crab by Amelia McInerney

• Looking for Crabs  by Bruce Whatley

• Old Shell New Shell  by Helen Ward

• Basghetti Spaghetti by Susanne Vettiger

and two fun graphic series

• A Crabby Book by Jonathan Fenske

• Crab and Snail by Beth Ferry

Once you associate crab with a favourite character you will care less about celebrating by eating crab.

I love this acronym. I'm going to make some badges to give children I see reading!

26th February Tell a Fairytale Day

 

Despite the fact that I keep reading that many teacher librarians have radically weeded the traditional literature section of their libraries (the 398.2s) because they perceive these stories to be sexist and racist, I see them as part of history and a very strong oral tradition of times gone past. Every culture has a version of Cinderella. Wouldn't it be sad if English speaking children did not know at least the Perrault version with the fairy godmother? I would like them to know the Grimm version too! Disney has romanticised many fairytales and made them into films and my young students just think they are 'films'. They are amazed when I tell them there was a book first for Pinocchio, the Little Mermaid, and even for Shrek.

My school library does have a large collection of traditional stories, in mainly one story per picture book format. The girls clamour over the Sarah Gibb's versions of tales and little wonder the art work is wonderful. Any story with princesses is borrowed. The girls all seem to say they like Rapunzel best.  I then introduce them to The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Snow White and Rose Red and The Frog Prince. I do like the stories where the prince has been duped by a spell! Then they can read Sleeping Beauty  and Snow White.

I really enjoy the language and repetition in good retellings of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Elves and the Shoemaker and Rumplestiltskin.

The younger teachers at school are in a big hurry to introduce their students to fractured fairytales or spoofs because they think they are fun. However often they don't work as well as they should because the very young students have very little knowledge of the traditional version.

If you are looking to expand this section of your library look for beautifully illustrated versions such as those by Sarah Gibb, Bernadette Watts, Paul Zelinsky, Charles Santore, Jerry Pinkney, Gerda Muller, Rachel Isadora, Kinuko Y Craft, and Ruth Sanderson.  Joy Cowley has a series of World Classics too.

If like me, you have pre-schoolers using the library, look for the lift the flap versions by Stephen Tucker and Nick Sharratt, the Flip-Up Fairytales by Child's Play and the Ed Bryan ones from Nosy Crow.

Now, can you tell a fairytale without a book? I love playing the game with students where we retell a fairytale. I ask a student to start off a story, then point to another student and say continue, then another one saying 'more detail' here, or flashback to...etc. Sometimes I start a story in the middle, with a particular character as the storyteller. Often he does not know what has come before and so the point of view is very different. This retelling does not work either unless the students know the story very well. 

So tomorrow it's your chance to tell (or read) a fairytale!

25th February Quiet Day

    

Quiet Day, also known as Don't Utter a Word Day, is observed annually on February 25th. It  was established to remind us to slow down and give silence a chance. It is about taking a pause and appreciating the sound of silence. Noise is everywhere — be it on the train, in a busy office, in the classroom, or even at home!

Most religions advocate for quiet and the wonders it can do for one’s emotional and physical well-being. They advocate for meditation and reflection.

Surrounding ourselves with peace and clarity can open our minds to new experiences and inspire us to lead more meaningful lives. 

It is very hard to get a class full of children to be completely quiet for any length of time, but some students do find their classrooms and the playground 'noisy'. These students come to the library at lunchtime and say can you make it quiet here. Even that isn't always possible because there are groups of children using puppets, doing jigsaw puzzles, drawing ... Perhaps I should invest in some headphones for the library, but I do like the congenial, cross-grade chat that occurs at lunchtime.

I will do a display of books for Quiet Day in the hope that some of them may spark some good discussions about silence and its virtues.

Books to display:

•  Be Quiet!  by Ryan T. Higgins

• Silence  by Lemniscates

•  Quiet by Tommy de Paola

• The Quiet Book  by Deborah Underwood

• The Quiet Place  by Sarah Stewart

• A Quiet Girl  by Peter Carnavas

• Quiet as a Mouse  by Martha Lightfoot

• Charlotte and the Quiet Place  by Deborah Sosin  Sara Woolley

• The Sound of Silence  by Katrina Goldsaito & Julia Kuo

• Hush! by Minfong Ho & Holly Meade 

• The Silence Slips In  by Alison Hughes & Ninon Pelletier

• I Am Quiet  by Andie Powers and Betsy Petersen

• Silence  by Lena Shamshurina

• Why Are You So Quiet? by Jaclyn Desforges & Risa Hugo

• Mole's Quiet Place  by Jane Chapman

• When I Listen to Silence  by Jean E. Pendziwol & Carmen Mok

• Quiet, Please!  by Russ Williams

• I Don't Want to be Quiet! by Laura Ellen Anderson

• Shhh! Quiet!  by Nicola Kinnear

24th February Possum Appreciation Day

I read that this day existed in my local free newspaper, but when searching the internet, I can find no reference to it. Not to be confused with Opossum Day which is the 17th October. Possums are Australian. Opossums are American. Some say that Sir Joseph Banks called them possums because he thought they looked like opossums. They are both marsupials, but not related.

However having not celebrated possums on my blog before I decided to do it anyway. After all I have done squirrels and raccoons which we do not have here in Australia and many here think possums are absolute pests!

In the black of night, Australia’s 27 species of possum and glider scamper across our roofs, dart along branches in secluded rainforests or peer tentatively from tiny hidey-holes.

They have  large eyes to capture more of the light at night. They have adapted to watch for owls, quolls and pythons, but their biggest threat – humankind – has increasingly encroached on their territory, destroying old-growth forest and its sheltering, century-old treehollow sanctuaries.

Where I live in Sydney there are two main species of possum that can be found, the brushtail possum and the ringtail possum and the children I teach are fascinated by them because they see them often in their backyards or in the bush near their homes. They notice the rope tunnels above local roads to allow the possums to cross aboreally.

Most books for children about possums are either factual or treat them as cute childlike characters such as in the most well known possum story Possum Magic. Go to the library and you might find these very Australian books

• Blossom Possom by Gina Newton and Kilmeny Niland

• Town Possum, Outback Possum by Yvonne Morrison and Heath McKenzie

• The Midnight Possum by Sally Morgan and Racklyeft

• Goodnight Possum by Coral Vass and Sona Babajanyan

• Possum Goes to School by Melanie Carter and Nicola Oram

• Possum in the House by Kirsten Jensen and Tony Oliver

• My Possum Plays the Drums by Catherine Meatheringham and Max Hamilton

• Echidna Scaly-tailed Possum and Echidna by Cathy Goonack and Katrina Goonack

• Possum's Big Surprise by Colin Buchanan and Nina Mycroft

• There's a Possum on the Porch  by Conny Fechner

• Hush, Little Possum by P. Crumble and Wendy Banks

• Bat vs Poss by Alexis Moses and Anil Tortop

• Penelope the Mountain Pygmy Possum  by Gordon Winch and Stephen Pym

• Tiny Poss and the Migrating Moths  by Julie Murphy and Ben Clifford

• Pip and Pim  by Ruth Hegarty and Sandi Harrold

• The Urban Escapees  by S.P.Ramage and Nettie Lodge

• Where do the Stars Go?  by Katie Stewart

• Oliver's Landing by Rebecca Johnson

•  Jump Baby by Penny Matthews and Dominique Falla

• The Long Way Home by Emily Rodda and Danny Snell

• Larry Leadbeater by Jo Watson

• The Kid Whose Mum Kept Possums in her Bra by Dianne Wolfer

If like me  you have been reading to school children for  a long time you might have squirrelled away a copy of Possums in the Roof by Julie Morris which is based on a true story, where a house has a loose roof tile and during a storm the roof leaks so the father climbs on to the roof to fix it. Unbeknown to him a mother possum has put her two babies in the roof cavity to keep them safe while the storm is raging. When she returns mother possum is distraught. When I read this story to children you can hear 'a pin drop', they are are so worried and yet eager to learn what happens. It creates so much discussion about children, parents and separation.

Possum  from the Solo Bush Baby series is also worth looking for.