15th February Hippopotamus Day

Coming up is Hippo Day! A great day to celebrate in a library because  -
1. Hippos are in danger, and humans are their biggest enemy. So we need to know more about these 'water horses'.
2. Some of the best 'reads' for children  feature hippos.

One of my all time favourite serial reads with a class is The Twentyseventh Annual African Hippopotamus Race by Morris Lurie. It is such fun and yet at the same time has so much to discuss with students. Can hippos really swim? What should Edward do about Sebastian? What makes Edward a good friend? a good grandchild? a good swimmer and competitor? What does 'gosh' really mean? Great to read before a sports day, swimming carnival, when you want to discuss bullying or even just hippos and Africa.

A wonderful pourquoi story, Hot Hippo  by Mwenye Hadithi and Adrienne Kennaway explains for students why hippos don't actually swim, but spend a large part of their day in the water.

Another book that students love is Hippos are Huge! by Jonathan London and Matthew Trueman. This illustrated information book tells students about just how big and dangerous hippos are.

Hippos have even made it to the realm of 'true animal stories' since the December tsunami that swept baby hippo, Owen into the sea. Kenyan villagers worked to rescue Owen and he has now become best friend with Mzee, an elderly giant tortoise. Many books feature these two. See Owen and Mzee and its sequel by Isabella Hatkoff et al; A Mama for Owen by Marion Dane Bauer and Mama by Jeanette Winter.

Hippos can also be something that authors use for humour. Look at the popularity of the very long lasting series that started with There's a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake by Hazel Edwards and Deborah Niland. And more recently, Hippospotamus by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross,  The Hippo-not-amus  by Tony and Jan Payne and Hippobottymus by Steve Smallman and Ada Grey.

And maybe because hippos can be cantankerous they often feature in children's books about feelings and behaviour. See  Greedy Grumpy Hippo; Big Bully Hippo; Hurty Feelings; and  The Hippo who was Happy. 

For even more hippo books for your display, look at these.

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3rd July International Plastic Bag Free Day

Today needs to be a  Plastic Bag Free Day! My local council has designated the whole of July as a plastic free time in order to make each of us contemplate what plastic bags do to our environment.International Plastic 

This most popular of disposable carrying devices that  we pick up from retailers are used for an incredibly short time, usually under 25 minutes, and are then disposed of. They may pass out of our thinking then, but they do not pass out of our world. Plastic bags remain in the world for anywhere from 100-500 years before finally decaying completely, and have a profound impact upon our environment as a result.

Out in the great reaches of the ocean are massive reefs made up of all sorts of plastic waste, and plastic bags play heavily among them. Such is the magnitude of the problem that these great floating islands reach hundreds of miles, like great monuments to mankind’s wastefulness, and disregard for the world upon which we live. International Plastic Bag Free Day gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves, and others, that every action we take, and every bag we dispose of, effects the lives of everyone in the world for generations to come.

I find that the children I teach are very aware of plastic in the oceans, but not so aware of its ramifications elsewhere such as in landfill. Luckily there are some wonderful picture books that can be used to start any discussion on what happens to plastic when it is not disposed of responsibly. 

See:
• One Plastic Bag  by Miranda Paul and Elizabeth Zunon tells the story of Isatou Ceesaya, a Gambian woman, 
 who came up with a way to recycle the plastic bags that had littered the landscape in her nation, an act that saved the environment and transformed her community.

• Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser and Barry Root. This story follows a plastic bag on its  journey from a landfill into a series of townspeople's lives. One cold morning in early spring, a bulldozer pushes a pile of garbage around a landfill and uncovers an empty plastic bag a perfectly good bag, the colour of the skin of a yellow onion, with two holes for handles that someone has thrown away. Just then, a puff of wind lifts the rolling, flapping bag over a chain-link fence and into the lives of several townsfolk a can-collecting girl, a homeless man, a store owner not that all of them notice.

• Theo and the Giant Plastic Ball  by The United Nations Environment Program and Adrienne Kennaway tells of Theo and his quest to improve at football by making a ball out of discarded plastic bags. This then leads to clearing up his local environment and the realisation that by the community working together they could maintain a cleaner, more healthy environment.

• Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Patricia Newman and Anne Crawley tells of a team of scientists who explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where millions of pieces of plastic have gathered, having drifted there from rivers, beaches, and ocean traffic all over the world.

• The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle by Alison Inches and Pete Whitehead is the diary of a plastic bottle. It goes on a journey from the refinery plant, to the manufacturing line, to the store shelf, to a garbage can, and finally to a recycling plant where it emerges into its new life...as a fleece jacket! 

1st May Save the Rhino Day

Today I went looking in the library for books about rhinos and found...well not much. It seems that the rhinoceros is not an animal chosen by authors as a character for children's picture books. Is it because they are not seen as having endearing qualities physically or emotionally? But rhinos, especially black rhinos are endangered and we do need to make sure that they survive and thus, the need for Save the Rhino Day.

With my Year 2 classes at the moment we are researching animals of the African savannah and for most animals I have about ten good books. For rhinos only two, which are:

• Black Rhino by Rod Theodorou

• Black Rhino by Malcolm Perry

For reading for pleasure, Shoo Rayner's series that retells Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories are favourites with my young readers , so search out • How the Rhino Got His Skin. I also found The Cross-with-us Rhinoceros a well borrowed story by John Bush and Paul Geraghty.

And good news two new books about rhinos:

• My Rhinoceros by Jon Agee and

• Running Rhino a new title in that wonderful series by Mwenye Hadithi and Adrienne Kennaway.

26th May Adrienne Kennaway (1945)

Adrienne Kennaway was born in New Zealand, grew up in Kenya and now lives in Ireland. While living in Africa she developed an interest in drawing and wildlife and most of her books therefore are about wildlife and the best selling ones, about African wildlife. She illustrates Mwenye Hadithi's alliteratively-titled African animal stories which explain a certain aspect of each animal's behaviour. Crafty Chameleon won her the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1987, but the children I teach like Hungry Hyena and Greedy Zebra best when asked to vote for their favourite. She also is the illustrator of Miriam Moss' series This is the..., the most recent being This is the Mountain, as well as a few animal stories that she has authored herself, such as An Otter's First Swim.