28th May Hamburger Day

The hamburger owes its name to the city of Hamburg in Germany, but the hamburger is known and loved today worldwide.It is usually some variation of  a meat patty wedged inside a bun with salad and if you live in Australia the salad will probably include beetroot!

You shouldn't really eat a hamburger and read at the same time because a good hamburger drips and makes your hands messy, but some time on this day why not read a book that features this wonderfully transportable food.

Start with 

• Burger Boy by Alan Durant and Mei Matsuoka

Then find one of these three novels

• The Perfect Hamburger  by Alexander McCall Smith

• Hedgehogs Don't Eat Hamburgers by Vivian French

• Stick Dog by Tom Watson

And if you want an information book

•  What Happens to a Hamburger?  by Paul Showers and Edward Miller

•  Hamburgers  by Joanne Mattern

Hope you're  now feeling hungry.

16th July World Snake day

It's World Snake Day! I'm certainly not enamoured of snakes, but the students I teach are. In fact the snake books in the library are nearly as popular as the shark books. Usually they want to borrow expository texts and marvel at the photos. We have many books that satisfy this need, the most popular probably being Damian Goodall's The Snake Book: Slip Sliding Away, but if you are looking for some picture books, these are some of the newer and more popular ones in the library:

• I (Don't) Like Snakes by Nicola Davies and Luciano Lozana
• Python by Christopher Cheng and Mark Jackson
• There's a Snake in My School!  by David Walliams and Tony Ross
• Boa's Bad Birthday by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
• Anna and Otis  by Maisie Paradise Shearring
• I Saw Anaconda by Emma Dodd and Jane Clarke

If you want to share a short novel, try:
• Akimbo and the Snakes  by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Snake Who Came to Stay by Julia Donaldson
• Snake and Lizard  by Joy Cowley

I have written about snakes before here.

12th August World Elephant Day

On August 12 World Elephant Day asks us to help conserve and protect elephants from the numerous threats they face.



It is not hard to feel empathy for elephants. It is not hard to get very young children interested in elephants either. There are so many picture books and  short novels for young children that introduce them to some of the difficulties faced by elephants. Recently a group of students and I shared Queenie by Corinne Fenton and we had a long discussion about whether or not elephants should be used to 'ferry' people around zoos. The World's Greatest Elephant by Ralph Helfer is a good book to share to discuss whether elephants should be part of a circus. One Step at a Time by Jane Jolly and Faithful Elephants  by Yukio Tsuchiya allow children to see how elephants can be innocent bystanders in a war.

Two chapter books that my Year 2 and 3 readers enjoy, but are moved to talk about are Tua and the Elephant  by Randall Harris and Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith.

There are so many wonderful books to introduce children to the marvels of elephants, both expository texts and faction, where they can learn about their life in the wild and what threatens their existence.

For more elephant picture books look here.

1st February National Serpent Day

It is National Serpent Day. What is a serpent? A snake, so it is Snake Day! Some websites say it is Snake Day on the 16th July so you can celebrate again then. There are lots of words for 'snake' that children recognise, like adder, asp, python, cobra and boa constrictor. What ever name they have many of the boys I teach are fascinated by them and snake books are well borrowed. In fact, at the moment the display shelves of the library are saturated with reptile books in three sections: snakes and lizards, crocodiles and alligators and turtles and tortoises. The library has only been open for two days and already quite a few snake and crocodile books have gone.

Some of my favourite snake books are:
• Crictor by Tomi Ungerer. This is old but still in print and very humorous.
• Snake Supper  by Alan Durant and Ant Parker really makes my preschoolers laugh.
• Python by Christopher Cheng and Mark Jackson is one of those wonderful Walker books that has a story alongside factual information in a different font.
• I (Don't) Like Snakes by Nicola Davies and Luciano Lozano is also part of that Nature Storybook series.
• Akimbo and the Snakes by Alexander McCall Smith is a short novel in the Akimbo series set in the game reserves of Africa.
There's more titles on my pinterest page here.

6th January Bean Day (Part 2)

Why is Bean such a common name in the world of children's books? It's not like it is this common in real life!

All of the books pictured above are part of a series of books except Bella and Bean by Rebecca Kai Dotlich.  This is a sweet picture book which certainly appeals to my pink-loving girls. It tells the story of two mice or rats, Bella, a moody poet and Bean, who is energetic and interrupts Bella's quiet constantly wanting her to join in some fun rather than composing. These two mismatched friends do influence each other though and by the end of the book they are writing a poem together. Lots of good vocabulary and lots to talk about especially in regards to friendship.

In the picture book series Zoe and Beans by father and daughter team Chloe and Mick Inkpen, Beans is a dog. Zoe and Beans do things that all preschoolers do but they also find themselves in adventures with pirates and on the moon which adds an element of creative play.

Beandog and Nugget by Cherise Mericle Harper is a series of easy graphic novels about two friends.
In The Ball, the first book in this series, Bean Dog and Nugget lose Bean Dog's shiny new ball in a bush. They dream up elaborate and silly ways to get it back while they argue about who is actually going to go and get it. Enter Superdog and Ninja Nugget for a hilarious ending that kids will love and relate to. Then in The Cookie the two think up ways to share the cookie. I am always looking for cartoon-style easy to read books for the library and these are perfect.


Ivy and Bean don't need an introduction. These two girls and their series of books are among the most borrowed early reader series in my library. Here Bean, short for Bernice is the tomboy, green- loving, anti-dress wearing half of the dynamic duo. Her friend Ivy is the more intellectual, quiet, pink-loving is the other half. In each of the ten books about them they cause much mischief and humour that 6 to 9 year old girls seem to really enjoy.



Beany  is a character who is brought to life in a series of books written by Susan Wojciechowski. Book one of five, Beany (Not Beanhead) introduces Bernice Lorraine Sherwin-Hendricks, aka Beany, a girl with twenty-three freckles, a bossy best friend, and a tendency to worry over just about everything! Bean is based on Susan's daughter Mary and in each of the books Beany tackles school anxieties 'with grit and fortitude'.  A good step up from Ivy and Bean!
Now for the three protagonists who have Bean as a surname!
Harriet Bean is a series of three books by Alexander McCall Smith. Harriet Bean, the heroine of each loves nothing more than a good mystery so together with her five extraordinary aunts (Veronica, Harmonica, Majolica, and twins Japonica and Thessalonika), she is always ready to take on a new case.
The Clarice Bean  series is a mixture of picture books and novels. The picture books are popular in my library but the chapter books are beyond the majority of my eight year olds. Lauren Child's wit is sophisticated, but like the other heroines listed above Clarice also has childhood worries, has to deal with unwanted changes, family and sibling issues and finding friendships.


Willa Bean is a lovable curly-haired cupid. She is very different from other cupids with her 'milli-bajillion' freckles, crazy mess of hair and purple wings. She attends the Cupid Academy and lives on Nimbus. There are five books in the Little Wings series about Willa Bean and they are easier to read than Jill Murphy's Worst Witch series and deal with similar school and friend problems.

22nd September Elephant Appreciation Day

I can't believe I haven't written about this celebration before. There are just so many wonderful books for young children about elephants or which have elephants as main characters. I have a pinterest page for elephant books so I don't intend to list all of these. Instead as part of my elephant appreciation I have decided to categorise and then tell you my favourites. Here they are!

Picture Book:
My favourite to read to preschoolers is The Elephant and the Bad Baby  by Elfrida Vipont and Raymond Briggs. While not really about elephants one of the main characters is an elephant and the children find him a loveable villain.
My favourite picture book about elephants, which also has a loveable main character is Little Elephant, Thunderfoot by Sally Grindley and John Butler.

Novel:
It is a toss up between two, both of which I have had success with reading to classes.
1. Tua and the Elephant by R.P. Harris
2. Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith

Non-Fiction:
With amazing photographs: Elephants a Book for Children by Steve Bloom
With illustrations: Grandma Elephant's in Charge by Martin Jenkins and Ivan Bates
This title is part of the wonderful Read and Wonder series which intersperses story with facts.

Folktale:
The Elephants' Ears by Catherine Chambers and Caroline Mockford
This story explains the differences between African and Indian elephants.

Biography/True story:
Queenie: One Elephant's Story by Corinne Fenton and Peter Gouldthorpe
This story is sad, but shows children a problem that may come with keeping wild animals in captivity.

Series:
Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems

21st June Meerkats

The meerkat toy is the most borrowed toy in the library. I bought it to go with Emily Gravett's Meerkat Mail,  but now Richard Byrne's Millicent and Meer and Jan Latta's Mia the Meerkat are borrowed just as much.

6th June Doughnut Day

In the United States the first Friday in June is National Doughnut Day and in England there was a whole week from 10th to 17th May designated as National Doughnut Week, yet here in Australia we haven't gone to those lengths to celebrate doughnuts. Children here certainly like them and eat them, but should we celebrate  a very sugary, deep-fried, doughy 'ring' ? I don't know. I did go looking in the library for doughnut books though, and found just as many with the 'donut' spelling. I wondered why there were two spellings and found an explanation here.

We only had five books that feature doughnuts/donuts:
• Daisy the Donut Fairy by Tim Bugbird. This is by far the most popular and you can see why when you look at the cover. The 'fairy/pink-loving' girls make sure it is always borrowed.
• If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff is part of the popular 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' series.
• The Donut Chef by Bob Staarke.
• The Doughnut Ring a short chapter book by Alexander McCall Smith
• Doughnut Danger by Anthony Masters, a reader from the I Am Reading series.
And a picture book where the word 'doughnut' is used as a name
• Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase  by Bruce Whatley.

After a bit of research I think that probably the ones I should have are:
• Arnie the Doughnut by Laurie Keller
• The Case of the Missing Donut  by Alison McGhee

Oh well, maybe by next year I will have enough titles to put together a display!

24th August Alexander McCall Smith (1948) Matt Ottley (1962)

Alexander McCall Smith is a Zimbabwean-born Scottish writer who writes prolifically for adults and children. He is well known for several series of books for adults, in particular The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, but he also has two series of books for children; one about Akimbo, the son of the manager of a game reserve, who has adventures with a different African animal in each title; the other about Harriet Bean, a nine year old detective who has some decidedly weird aunts and an eccentric inventor father. He has also written a children's book about Precious Ramotswe, the detective in his Ladies' Detective Agency books which is available now in Scottish, but will not be published in English until next year. It is called Precious and the Puggies and in it Precious is at school in Botswana, is eight years old and solves her first case.

In contrast, Matt Ottley is a New Guinea-born Australian illustrator who went to secondary school in Sydney. When he visits schools he tells children that he is colour blind and they are fascinated that this can be the case when Matt makes his living from art. He does books for adults and children and has won the Australian Picture Book of the Year Award for his amazing graphic novel/picture book/musical combination, Requiem for a Beast, but it is not for my young clientele. His series of three books about a dog called Faust is though. Faust is a dog with an extraordinary group of friends and to whom unusual things happen. I particularly like Ottley's picture book Mrs Millie's Painting and his illustrations for Nadia Wheatley's Luke's Way of Looking.