31st October Doorbell Day

On October 31st, National Doorbell Day will have doorbells ringing more than any other day of the year. The day recognises the little buzzer, unique tones, and rings that alert us to visitors to our doors every day of the year. And, of course on Halloween the doorbell will be rung more than usual, in fact more than on any other day of the year. 

Joseph Henry invented the first electric doorbell in 1831 and during the Great Depression, J. Ralph Corbett invented doorbells that feature different chimes. 

Of course, we can celebrate this day with Halloween picture books, but I want to draw your attention to books that are specifically about or feature doors, knocking and or doorbells.

Probably the most well known is The Doorbell Rang  by Pat Hutchins which looks at all the visitors sharing a plate of freshly cooked cookies.

And there is a lovely new book titled Knock Knock  by Catherine Meatheringham and Deb Hudson which takes the onomatopoeic word knock and gives it in other languages as well. 

There are others. This is what I can think of, but I'm sure there are others...

• Knock Knock Who's There?  by Sally Grindley and Anthony Browne

• A Visitor for Bear  by  Bonny Becker and Kady MacDonald Denton

• Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev and Taeeun Yoo 

• Who's That Knocking?  by Alison Lester

• Who's at the Door?  by Jonathan Allen

There's a series of Knock Knock books by Carol Hart and Nick East...pirate, dinosaur, superhero, alien...

There are a number of books with Knock Knock  in the title that are riddle books.

Think about how many fairytales have door knockers ie. characters who knock on a door ...the wolf in The Three Little Pigs;  Jack in  Jack and the Beanstalk  when he visits the giant; Hansel and Gretel;  the bear in Snow White and Rose Red.

PS. 

29th December Summer

It's Summer   

 

Take a trip to the beach where you'll find the best sandcastles ever built, fish and chips for lunch, lots of boats and a few perfect waves.

In my last blog I was bemoaning the Summer weather, but then it came good and now today it is very overcast again. When it was warm and sunny with brilliant blue skies and glistening sea I began thinking about which picture books epitomise Summer in Australia. They need to include the beach, swimming, doing nothing, cicadas, flies, mosquitoes, blue bottles, seagulls, picnics, cherries, mangos, zinc cream, sunburn, cricket, camping, fishing, outdoors, barbecuing... Of course they could include drought and bushfires, but I'm not including those here. I came up with this list. My childhood summers were a cross between Perfect  and Magic Beach as I grew up on the South Coast of New South Wales in a rural idyll like the farming area depicted by Freya Blackwood, but spent my school holidays at Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay at my grandparents' rental cabins so experienced the wonders of the beach depicted in Magic Beach  by Alison Lester.

Why I Love Summer by Michael Wagner and Tom Jellett *

Sunny days, weekends at the pool, games in the backyard, daylight until late and long, lovely holidays . . . that's summer, the best season ever.  

Summer by June Factor and Alison Lester *

Celebrate a special summer’s day and all that it brings: changing weather, family gatherings, lots of fun and . . . Christmas! 

Summer Time by Antonia Perenti and Hilary Bell *

Summer is here. Put your school shoes away, 
The long, lazy days can begin. 
Mangoes and magpies, municipal pools… 

Perfect  by Danny Parker and Freya Blackwood *

On a perfect day, the hours stretch endlessly ahead. Scribbling with chalk, running with kites, digging for shells ... paddling, climbing, dreaming. 

Greetings From Sandy Beach by Bob Graham *

The story of one family's camping holiday at the beach.

Magic Beach by Alison Lester

Visit a perfect beach where you can swim, surf, splash through the waves, build sandcastles, beachcomb, explore rock-pools, muck about in boats, fish from the jetty, and build a bonfire under the stars. 

Summer Blue by Trudie Trewin and Marjorie Crosby-Fairall

Marley and Moses lived in a place where the heat crept up and smothered the days in stifling stillness. And it stayed and stayed. A captivating story of a searing Australian summer and waiting for the welcome relief of rain.

Little Dog and the Summer Holiday by Corinne Fenton and Robin Cowcher

The summer holidays stretch out forever. Little Dog and his family set off with their caravan. A nostalgic and delightful story about the way family holidays used to be. 

Two Summers by John Heffernan and Freya Blackwood

Rick is coming to visit the farm again. But will he recognise the farm? Will he have as much fun as last time? Same friend. Same farm. Totally different landscape.

Australia at the Beach by Max Fatchen and Tom Jellett

A story of sun, surf, picnics, fish and chips, and one-legged seagulls. This is how one Australian family spends Australia Day at the beach, from packing up the car to getting dumped by a wave, playing beach cricket, and coming home sandy and exhausted.

Not a Nibble  by Elizabeth Honey

Holidays at the beach mean camping, swimming, finding crabs, feeding the seagulls, walking, reading. Everyone has plans for things to do.

Of course there's many other Australian picture books that could be on this list such as The Deep by Tim Winton, A Swim in the Sea by Sue Whiting, Jetty Jumping *  by Andrea Rowe and two that are no longer in print Mr Plunkett's Pool by Gillian Rubinstein and Sunny Faces  by Jeri Kroll. The cover of this last book shows children's faces that are slathered in zinc cream just like ours were and this illustration really makes me smile. Unfortunately I can't find a picture to show you and the book is at school and I'm at home. The books marked with an * are on Story Box Library if you don't have a copy in your library. Other books about summer can be found here.

1st August Horses' Birthday

In the southern hemisphere, the Horses’ Birthday is celebrated by nearly all breeds on the first day of August. The reason for the selection of the first day of August in the southern hemisphere, as opposed to say the first day of January, May or November is that historically, the weather at the commencement of September is just beginning to warm up, prompting mares to commence their oestrus cycle, or ‘come into season’.  

A mare’s oestrus cycle is stimulated by the presence of extended daylight, nature intending that foals be born eleven months later through spring and summer when feed is plentiful so that mares can produce good supplies of nutritious milk. Therefore, mares successfully bred early in September will produce foals in early August.

Stories about horses are always popular in the library. We even have a few students who go horeseriding.  I have written about horse books before, but we have added new books to the library since then. For what there is see here.

These are some:

• Horses Wild and Tame by Iris Volant

• Gallop! 100 facts About Horses by Kitson Jazynka

• So She Did: The Story of May Wirth  by Simi Genziuk & Renee Treml

• Clare and her Captain by Michael Morpurgo

• The Painted Ponies  by Alison Lester

• Wandering Star by Natalie Jane Prior & Stephen Michael King

• Lucy and Copper  by Mandy Foot

and if you are looking for fun short novels, these two series are worth a look:

Fables From the Stables  by Gavin Puckett and You Freeman (5 books)

• Colin the Cart Horse

• Hendrix the Rocking Horse

• Murray the Race Horse 

• Hayley the Hairy Horse

• Poppy the Police Horse

A Roly-Poly Flying Pony Adventure by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre

• The Legend of Kevin

• Kevin's Great Escape

• Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit

• Kevin vs the Unicorns

 

21st June Dog Tales

 

I have just come back from a weekend in Canberra. Despite the cold, blustery weather I walked and saw two exhibitions. My colleague and I went to visit Dog Tales: Dogs in Australian Children's Literature because we both love picture books and illustrations. We knew it featured illustrations by Bob Graham, Alison Lester and Ann James. We speculated about who else would feature because most Australian illustrators have books that feature dogs, the quintessential family pet in Australia. 

The most famous Australian picture book dog at the moment is probably Aaron Blabey's Pig the Pug, but there have been others such as Amanda Graham's Arthur, Colin Thompson and Sarah Davis's Fearless, Andrew McLean's Josh, Matt Ottley's Faust, Margaret Wild and Stephen Michael King's Pocket Dogs and more recently Annie White's Clementine.

The exhibition featured the three authors listed and Andrew McLean mainly. I was pleased to see Andrew McLean there because his dogs are especially endearing. His book Dog Tales which may have triggered the exhibition name features so many dogs and Josh  who has  books of his own featured here first.

      

Other dogs illustrated by him that 'shine' are 

• Bob the Railway Dog by Corinne Fenton

• Reggie,Queen of the Street by Margaret Barbalet

• Oh, Kipper! by Janet McLean

• My Dog by John Heffernan

Alison Lester featured in the exhibition because of My Dog Bigsby  who has a book of his own and appears in the Noni the Pony books as well.

Bob Graham has a dog in so many of his books, but in the exhibition we saw the wonderful dog from Queenie, the Bantam and  the dogs from Let's Get a Pup and The Trouble with Dogs. I particularly like the dead-weight dog Bob Graham did in Nigel Gray's books My Dog, My Cat, My Mum and Me! and Come On Everybody, Time to Play!

     

     

Ann James is a dog expert! I love her dogs. See The Way I Love You by David Bedford and Dog In, Cat Out by Gillian Rubinstein among others.

            

Stephen Michael King has illustrated many dogs and he did not feature in the exhibition, some that spring to mind are:

• Mutt Dog

• Three 

• Barney by Catherine Jinks

Books that feature dogs are often winners! They appeal to readers, they are shortlisted and they linger in our minds.

I still cannot read Toby by Margaret Wild and Noela Young without crying. Oh Albert! by Davina Bell and Sara Acton makes me smile. So too, do all of Nina Rycroft's dogs. See Pooka, by Carol Chataway; Good Dog Hank by Jackie French and This is the Dog by Maura Finn. Bruce Whatley's dogs make me laugh, they have so much personality. See Little White Dogs Can't Jump; The Magnetic Dog  and The Ugliest Dog in the World. Tom Jellett's dogs have attitude. See The Twelfth Dog by Charlotte Calder; Seadog by Claire Saxby and The Bad Bassinis by Clair Hume.

Last year My Friend, Fred by Frances Watts and A. Yi won Book of the Year for Early Childhood and When Billy Was a Dog  by Kirsty Murray and Karen Blair and Three were on shortlists. This year We Love You, Magoo by Briony Stewart and Seven Seas of Fleas by Dave Petzold are both on shortlists and could be winners! Australians certainly love picture books about dogs! And if we added all the beginning novels about dogs this would be a very long blog!

1st November Melbourne Cup

I've had fun in the library today. I took down all the Halloween display and the library looked very bare, so quickly before my first class I pulled out as many 'horse' books as I could find. Year 1 are currently undertaking a unit of inquiry on Celebrations so I thought we'd celebrate the Melbourne Cup by reading horse books. We had quite a collection. I focused on the beautiful Australian picture books of Alison Lester, Patricia Mullins and Glenda Millard but I couldn't believe how many little chapter books we had and many of these hadn't been borrowed for a long time. Five classes later and a little coercion and many of the horse books, picture books, novels and non-fiction have gone home for a visit.

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22nd - 26th August Book Week

Well another Book Week in Australia is over. This year's theme Australia: Story Country proved to be a good one and each class at my school celebrated with an Australian book that they read and  used as inspiration for discussions and response activities that highlighted places in Australia, either in the form of travel to places mentioned or to the home of authors, illustrators or famous Australians.
Each class did a one page 'postcard' to display for the whole school population and visitors to read read in the corridor. It was a huge success. On Grandparents Day on Friday the corridor was full of children showing adults their work and discussing the books displayed along side. See images below that when joined together made a long Rainbow Serpent winding its way to the library. Not all classes work is here as some had photos or identified specific children. The teachers chose the books to either fit with a unit of enquiry, because it was a favourite book or author or because the students showed interest in it. I was so impressed with the range and what each class did.

There are four classes per grade. The books chosen were:

Kindergarten
* My Place  by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins
* Silly Birds  by Gregg Dreise
* Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (new paperback single story editions) by May Gibbs and Mark McLeod
* Koala Lou  by Mem Fox and Pamela Lofts
Year 1
* Are We There Yet? by Alison Lester
* Bright Star  by Gary Crew and Anne Spudvilas
* Where the Forest Meets the Sea  by Jeannie Baker
* Tiny: A Little Dog on a Big Adventure  by Jennifer Castles and Steve Otton
Year 2
* Enora and the Black Crane  by Arone Raymond Meeks
* Feathers and Fools by Mem Fox and Nicholas Wilson (US) and Lorraine Ellis (Aus)
* Home  by Narelle Oliver
* You and Me Murrawee by Kerri Hashmi and Felicity Marshall

18th August Book Week Connecting to Reading Part 1

It is Children's Book Week in Australia and the theme 'Connect to Reading' has meant some very insightful reading has been happening in my library. My 5  to 8 year olds have been reading from the Early Childhood and the Picture Book shortlists. We have been connecting these titles to other older books that they may not have known too.

We haven't done any art or craft activities yet. I am saving the Reading to Connect activities for fun in the library this week when we will draw with rainbow pencils and paint with mud, as Ann James does in I'm a Dirty Dinosaur, try to draw a duck in a minute inspired by Silver Buttons and make plastic bag parachutes to float our teddies off the second floor down onto the playground.

So far though we have made text-to-text connections between the two lullabies on the Early Childhood shortlist Baby Bedtime and Kissed by the Moon. We played lullaby music and lay down on the mat as I read.

We read The Swap and connected it to Pat Hutchins 1985 classic The Very Worst Monster which is also about sibling rivalry and the need to get rid of a sibling.

We read Banjo and Ruby Red  and connected it with many books Year1 and I had read last term when we looking at chickens and foxes in picture books and talking about stereotypes. The children thought it reminded them of Albert and Lila,  a chicken and pig story where they help each other to outwit a fox and The Chicken Thief  because 'the hen and fox become good friends'. This connection also led to us reconnecting with Bear and Chook the good friends in Lisa Shanahan's award-winning books.

And although we live near the beach, the concept of grommet was very new to my students, so to read Granny Grommet and Me  we first looked at some surfing books and the news report about granny grommets. One of my students connected this story with Olivia Learns to Surf because in it Olivia is taught to surf by her grandmother. We quickly visited it, but the children were much more interested in talking about sea dragons so that is where we went, off exploring them. The book Seahorses and Seadragons led us to connections of all kinds especially once the students discovered from the maps that they could be found in the sea off Sydney. Next we read another Australian picture book Seadragon Sea  by Margaret Spurling.

The shortlisted Early Childhood books were well received by Kindergarten and Year 1 students, but The Swap  and Banjo and Ruby Red  were the most popular by far when we pretended to be judges and voted, so for once the judges agreed with the children which often isn't the case. It is a fitting tribute to Jan Ormerod to have her last book achieve such an award!

1st August Horse's Birthday

There is Cow Day and I decided to do books to support a Sheep Day, but it appears as if there is no National Horse Day, so I am making the 1st August, when every horse in Australia has a birthday, Horse Day.

All thoroughbred horses have the same birthday so as to standardise their ages for racing. In the Northern hemisphere all horses have their birthday on 1st January, but here it is 1st August.

This appears odd when a horse born at the end of July is already considered a yearling in August and then a 2 year old after its second August 1 even though it is really only one year and a few days.

Horses are very popular in children's literature, especially in novels for young readers. There are many horse-mad young girls visiting my library.

This collage shows some of the books that are popular. Except for Princess Evie's Ponies and the Bonny and Sam books these are not series. Aussie Nibbles and Aussie Bites both have several titles which feature horses.

In Australia, Alison Lester's books show her great love of horses and illustrator Patricia Mullins is often called upon when the title features horses because she too has a strong affinity with horses. Lightning Jack, her most recent title illustrated for author Glenda Millard is on the Picture Book of the Year shortlist. There are teacher's notes to accompany it here. Look for horse stories by American illustrator, Susan Jeffers as well because she too draws beautiful horses. See her picture book version of Black Beauty.

9th January

Continuing yesterday's Summer theme, I thought today I would make some suggestions for Australian books about the beach and holidays at the beach. Of course, there is Alison Lester's Magic Beach with its irresistible illustrations that make you want to be swimming in those waves too. Next, another oldie, but goodie, Greetings From Sandy Beach by Bob Graham. Every Australian family that has ever been camping, had someone be sick in the car or met bikies will relate well to this and if they haven't it is still a good laugh. Thirdly, Tim Winton's The Deep, a family story about the youngest child being brave enough to swim in deep water by herself. Roland Harvey's At the Beach with its postcards home to the grandparents telling all about the children's holiday at Crabby Spit. Australia at the Beach by Max Fatchen should be on this list too, but I want to feature it on Australia Day because it is about the archetypal beach celebration for commemorating this Australian holiday. And lastly, a chapter book which is also about the beach and camping, Skating on Sand by Libby Gleeson. This is the story of Hannah, the younger sister of twin older sisters who give her a hard time about skating, but Hannah's perseverance and obstinacy pays off.