13th February World Radio Day

Proclaimed in 2011 World Radio Day marks the day United Nations Radio was established in 1946.  Radio was once one of the most incredible technologies on Earth – used by militaries and governments alike for navigation, news distribution, and more. It made news and music more accessible and brought us closer as a nation and a planet. Though today we rely more heavily on the internet and television for what we once relied on radio for, radio is far from dead and increasingly appreciated for its vintage and fantastic content.

Radio is a powerful medium for celebrating humanity in all its diversity and constitutes a platform for democratic discourse. At the global level, radio remains the most widely consumed medium. Radio is a low-cost medium specifically suited to reaching remote communities and vulnerable people, offering a platform to intervene in the public debate, irrespective of people’s educational level. It also plays a crucial role in emergency communication and disaster relief.

The radio has provided entertainment, news, comfort, and information and united people both near and far ever since Guglielmo Marconi invented it in 1895.

There is very little in the school library that will help celebrate this day. Of course, Marconi will be included in books about inventors but we do not have a picture book biography about him.

Read these instead:

• Radio Rescue  by jane Jolly and Robert Ingpen. Jim and his family live happily on their remote outback station. Yet, sometimes Jim feels lonely. Jim's Dad enjoys droving and shearing his sheep but sometimes he wishes he could chat to a mate. Jim's Mum is always busy with the accounts and looking after the chooks, but she sometimes worries about being so far away from everything—what would happen if someone got sick? Then a strange new radio with pedals arrives and Jim's Mum and Dad can send messages to their neighbours. Jim wants to have a go! Fascinating factual information at the back of the book explains how the pedal radio worked and how the Flying Doctor and the School of the Air developed as a result.

• Radio Rescue  by Lynne Barasch 

In the 1920s...a long-distance telephone call can take hours.  An overseas call is not possible at all.  But there is a new invention, called wireless radio, that permits instant communication over long distances. This book tells the story of one boy and how he became an amateur radio operator just for fun, but also got to use his skill for something more important.

• Radio Boy  by Sharon Phillips Denslow and Alec Gilman

This is a fictionalised account of the childhood of Nathan Stubblefield, who patented several inventions, the young boy fixes his neighbour's new telephone.

•  A Fox Found a Box by Ged Adamson

A little fox is digging for food when--OUCH! What is that?--the fox finds a box! When the fox brings the box home to his animal friends--and turns a funny-looking knob--the box starts to sing, and music fills the forest. Everyone agrees that it feels nice. Day and night, they listen to the box's songs, until, one day, it goes quiet. No matter what they try, they just can't get the box to sing again. The animals stop swishing their tails and flapping their wings...