19th June World Albatross Day

Albatrosses are among the most remarkable seabirds on the planet, known for their vast movements across the world’s oceans. And did you know Australia has its very own albatross species – the Shy Albatross? Sadly, Shy Albatross and other seabirds are threatened by H5 bird flu, and as the theme of World Albatross Day 2025 is Confronting the Silent Threat of Disease, we need to make sure that despite this looming threat, we help conserve these long-lived and simply beautiful birds.

Quite a few years ago now, I had a Year 2 reader who was smitten with birds. He had borrowed and read nearly every bird book that I had in the library, when one day he came in saying 'I need a book on albatrosses now!' He'd watched a documentary. As you can imagine there weren't any books about albatrosses and I felt I had let him down. Not long after this a series of books about the Life Cycles of Marine Animals arrived in the library and one of these books was this one, Laysan Albatross  by Michael Molnar. I quickly covered and catalogued it so that I could give it to this student. Luckily it fit the bill and subsequently became a favourite of his. 

If a student came in with this request now, I would find it much easier to find books for them.

• Wisdom: The Midway Albatross  by Darcy Pattinson

The oldest bird in the world, documented with banding, is Wisdom, the Midway Albatross. She was on Midway when the Japanese Tsunami hit and this is her amazing story of survival of manmade and natural disasters for over 60 years. She has survived the dangers of living wild, plastic pollution, longline fishing, lead poisoning, and the Japanese earthquake. At 65, she's still laying eggs and hatching chicks. 

17th June World Karate Day

Today, is World Karate Day, created by the World Karate Federation in 2017 to celebrate the sport’s inclusion at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In 2016, it was announced that karate would be one of five new sports to be included on the Olympic programme. 

Karate’s journey to the Olympics has been a long one, with attempts to have the sport included beginning in the 1970s. Symbolically, the sport will make its debut in its home country, with the competition taking place at Nippon Budokan.

I haven't written about karate before and there isn't a lot of books, but there's enough for a small display. 

Factual books:

Picture story books:

And a few chapter books:

Book an Adventure (Part 3 - where the book takes you on an adventure to other places)

Many of the themes chosen for Book Week have leant themselves to travelling to other places...One World Many Stories; Escape to Everywhere; Sail Away With Books, and I have had fun taking students to other countries adventuring. I have used passports, wide reading contracts where the students had to read  books from different countries or continents and focused on places the students may or may not have been. These places make for good adventures.

Some books are very helpful as they do the travelling for you, visiting a whole lot of different places all in one book. These books do that:

• The Best Book in the World  by Rilla Alexander

If you found the best book in the world, would you stop reading? Could you stop reading? If you had homework to do, or dinner to get through, could you put the book down? On a train to the zoo or on a flight to Kalamazoo, would that break the spell? If in a forest you walked, while scary monsters stalked . . . would that be enough? If you'd crossed a desert that baked or were swept off by a river that snaked, would you even take a break?

• Jeremy's Tail  by Duncan Ball

Jeremy is at a birthday party and it is his turn to 'pin the tail on the donkey'. His attempts to locate the donkey take him all the way around the world before successfully returning and pinning the tail accurately.

• Emma Jane's Aeroplane  by Katie Haworth

Emma Jane zooms off in her aeroplane around the cities of the world. Along the way she makes a crew of animal friends who save the day when the little plane gets into trouble...

• A Ticket Around the World  by Natalia Diaz 

Join a young boy as he hops around the globe, visiting friends in 13 different countries spanning all 6 populated continents. Along the way, each friend introduces us to their country's environment and customs, and shares interesting facts about their country's culture, language, food, geography, wildlife, landmarks and more. 

• Papa Brings Me the World  by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw 

Most parents drive a car or ride a bus or train to work-but not Lulu's papa. He navigates mountains, deserts, and oceans, each time returning home with pockets full of treasures. There's an ancient calculator from China, a musical mbira from Zimbabwe, and special games from Sumatra. But the best treasures are special stories Papa tells when he comes home-tales of playing peek a boo with rare birds in the Andes and riding dragons in the Irish Sea. 

• Walk This World  by Lotta Neiminen

Travel to a new country with every turn of the page, each with new surprises to discover: peep through windows, open doors and delve underground by opening the many lift-flaps designed into every spread.

• One World Many Colours by Ben Lerwill

A lyrical celebration of the vibrant colours waiting to be found in all corners of the world. From the ice-white plains of Antarctica to the soft pink blossoms of the Japanese countryside. 

• My Big World  by Maggie Li

Follow Koko and Alex as they ask questions about the world while intrepid explorers go on adventures to find out how and where we live. Starting from inside the home, Koko and Alex move on to explore the wider world. Step by step the reader encounters different plants and animals, exploring various locations around the world and even visiting outer space! 

• Our World Full of Wonders  by Javita Nilsen

Our world is full of amazing natural wonders. From sparkling seas and towering trees, to valleys, lakes and waterfalls, there are extraordinary places that seem too magical to be true but can be found right here on planet Earth.

•  Atlas of Adventures  by Lucy Letherland

Set your spirit of adventure free with this lavishly illustrated trip around the world. Whether you're visiting the penguins of Antarctica, joining the Carnival in Brazil or a canoe safari down the Zambezi River, this book brings together more than 100 activities and challenges to inspire armchair adventurers of any age. Find hundreds of things to spot and learn new facts about every destination. 

• Wild World  by Angela McAllister

Discover thirteen incredible habitats, from the crystal kingdom Arctic to the dusty savannah and the black-as-space deep sea, in this beautiful tribute to the last wildernesses of our world.

And this book is long out of print, but your library might have it. Ours does.

• Around the World  by Lindsay Barrett George

Here the teacher goes on the adventure. What would you hear and see if you travelled to every corner of of the world in search of wildlife in all its forms? Here is your answer and your passport to adventure. Follow Miss Lewis as she circumnavigates the globe aboard the ship 'Explorer' and reports her experiences in photographs, sketches and letters sent back to her students at home.

Book an Adventure (Part 2 - where the book takes you on a literary adventure)

Sometimes you start reading a book and before you know it you are in a storybook world, a world where you know the characters from other books you've read, fantasy characters are seemingly 'real' or you have slipped into the story adventure that the book is telling you. 

These books do that and they would make a good start for any discussion about a book being able to take you on an adventure:

• Is it a Book or Is it a Plane?  by Mike Henson

Dive into the book that isn't a book and interact with the pages to create exciting new objects and worlds. Fly the book like an aeroplane, wear it like a hat, turn it into a monster mask, transform it into a roaring dinosaur or sail it like a pirate ship! 

 • Once Upon a Book by Grace Lin & Kate Messner

Alice loves to imagine herself in the magical pages of her favorite book. So when it flaps its pages and invites her in, she is swept away to a world of wonder and adventure, riding camels in the desert, swimming under the sea with colourful fish, floating in outer space, and more!

• Come, Read With Me by Margriet Ruurs

Join two young children as they begin an adventure through a world of books. This metered read-aloud pays homage to classic children's literature. Readers will love searching for characters they recognise from fairy tales and beloved picture books amongst the pages. Spiders weave words and mythical dragons soar as the children travel through magical lands.

• When You Open a Book by Caroline Derlatka

This is a stunning ode to the world's grandest adventure of all: reading a book. Gorgeous artwork by Italian illustrator Sara Ugolotti depicts dragons, forests, pirates, merfolk, lollipop trees, lemonade tides, and more as a child journeys through page upon page of the written word.

• I Love a Book  by Joe Rhatigan

This is a celebration of books, reading, and our imaginations. The  lyrical prose becomes more frantic as a young reader encounters pirates sailing the sea, a classroom of monsters "learning math with their paws," and even an animal doctor making house calls in a helicopter.

• The Bridges  by Tom Percival

Mia feels alone; so alone that it's as if she lives on a small island, far out to sea. But then one day, Mia is given a book - the first she has ever been able to call her own. As Mia reads the book, bridges appear and her island fills with colour and life. And the more Mia reads, the stronger the bridges become, opening up a world of connection and hope... 

• No Buddy Like a Book  byAllan Wolf

Step aboard the Word Express. It's leaving from the station. The only ticket needed is your own imagination.Have you ever wanted to climb to the top of Everest with one hand behind your back? Kiss a crocodile all by yourself on the Nile river? How about learning how to bottle moonlight, or track a distant star? There are endless things to discover and whole universes to explore simply by reading a book.

• The Library Book  by Gabby Dawnay

Zach isn't convinced that books are for him - they're too long, they're boring and he would rather watch TV. But thanks to his friend Ro's stubborn efforts, Zach falls for books hook, line and sinker, and loses himself in a world of dinosaurs, princesses, pirates, football and rocketships - anything and everything the library has to offer.

• Shhh! I'm Reading by John Kelly

Bella is reading the best book ever! She’s just gotten to the most amazing part when suddenly, Captain Bluebottom appears and invites her on an adventure. “I’m sorry, Captain,” Bella tells him, “but today, I’d rather just sit and read my book.” So Bella returns to her book and is just about to read the best part when Maurice Penguin shows up and invites her to perform on stage with all the penguins. 

• The Big Book Adventure by Emily Ford and Tim Warnes

Two friends are comparing their adventures of the day. One friend has gone to a tea party, visited with a mermaid, visited Gran in her cottage in the woods with friend Red (and is pretty sure that someone else is lurking in those same woods), and found buried treasure on an island. The other friend has had a similarly busy day – learning how to fly, taking a trip to space and encountering aliens, lunching with a dragon, visiting three bears, and taking a magic carpet ride. Sound impossible? Not with a good book, it isn’t. 

•  Mr Luke's Magic Library Ocean Adventure  by Luke Springer

There’s a special place, hidden within the school. It’s a magical place where the books inside can take readers on journeys beyond their wildest dreams. Mr Luke’s class have opened a magic book and found themselves under the sea communing with a mermaid.

(This reminds me of Ms Frizzle who takes her class on adventures via the magic school bus.)

• Pick a Story series by Sarah Coyle

Pick a Story is the only series where young readers choose between three completely different worlds – allowing them to change the story as it happens. Children are excited by having choice and a feeling of agency, and it fires their imaginations.

• Story Path  by Kate Baker

Travel along the story path and discover an enchanted world where fairy princesses battle with monsters from the deep and vampire cats zoom through the galaxy on silver unicorns. This innovative twist on the classic quest tale allows young readers to choose their own characters, settings and plots at every turn.