14th March Beds, Sheep and Sleep.

I had been meaning to write more about beds and sleep because I have found it fascinating what is being borrowed from the library display. I thought of three topics and each is really a blog on its own, but this week I ran out of time to write each night. So here is an amalgamation.

Topic 1 Magic Beds
Probably the most famous book for this category is Bed Knob and Broomsticks by Mary Norton. Every child who had had this story read to them yearns for a bed like this. Another short novel that my children love is Ten in a Bed by Allan Ahlberg. Here a girl named Dinah Price is visited by a number of fairytale characters while she is in bed. But there are picture books too where the bed is capable of magic journeys and occurrences. Try:
• The Magic Bed by John Burningham
• Big Bouncy Bed by Julia Jarman and Adrian Reynolds
• Luke and his Amazing Space Bed by Luke Sheridan and Jen McCartney
• Outer Space Bedtime Race by Robert Sanders and Brian Won

Topic 2 Counting Sheep
How can there be so many stories about counting sheep when trying to sleep? My favourite is The 108th Sheep by Ayano Imai, but there are lots of others:
• One More Sheep by Mij Kelly and Russell Ayto
• When Sheep Cannot Sleep by Satoshi Kitamura
• The Sleep  Sheep  by Anna McQinn and Hannah Shaw
• Counting Sheep  by Kathryn Cave and Chris Riddell

Topic 3  What's Under the Bed?
Starting with books that have that as the title:
• What's Under the Bed? by Joe Fenton
• What's Under the Bed by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom
• There's an Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer
• Under the Bed by Paul Bright and Ben Cort
• The Crocodile Under the Bed by Judith Kerr
• Emus Under the Bed by Leann J. Edwards

15th - 21st Gardening Week 16th - 22nd April Bread Week

It is Bread Week in the UK.  It is also Gardening Week. The UK certainly knows what to celebrate. Gardens and bread are two things that I love!

There are so many wonderful picture books that could be used to celebrate these two topics. I have a Pinterest board on gardening and any book I would recommend is likely to be there. I have written about picture books that celebrate bread on this blog before, but I would like to add this new celebration of bread and the things we do with it, Hooray for Bread by Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman.

30th March Pencil Day

30th March marks the day when a patent was taken out by Hymen Lipman in 1858 on the first pencil with a rubber (eraser) attached and thus it has become known as Pencil Day.

Pencils, crayons, pens, all sorts of drawing implements feature in many books and usually they have a degree of magic where whatever they draw becomes reality. Anthony Browne realised the magic pencil's potential many years ago when he created the bear with the magic pencil. He appeared in Bear Hunt; Bear Goes to Town; Little Bear Book and A Bear-y Tale and when I began teaching these books created a lot of fun on rainy lunchtimes when my class would make their own bear and magic pencil adventures. Except for the first title these books seem to be out of print so you will need to hunt in a library. Recently Anthony Browne resurrected bear and turned the concept into a competition in Britain. The result of this is a new book called The Bear With the Magic Pencil. Maybe it will mean the older titles can be reissued.

Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman also explore the concept of a pencil that can draw and create new objects in The Pencil. Everything goes well in this story until the pencil draws an eraser.

And, if you are looking for a longer book, but one that still has that sense of mischief, read Andy Griffiths' Pencil of Doom.

Of course the day could just be enjoyed by drawing with pencils, special pencils like aquarelles or metallic ones or by exploring how pencils are made. Angela Royston's book How is a Pencil Made? will help with this.

5th June Richard Scarry (1919 - 1994) Allan Ahlberg (1938)

American

Richard Scarry began his career

in children's literature

illustrating Little Golden Books in the 1950s. In 1963 he

wrote and illustrated Best Word Book Ever in

a style that became his trademark, so to speak, anthropomorphic animal characters that were busy with the details of everyday life. He is probably best known for his Busytown series of books. His books seem to have undergone a resurgence in popularity in the last five years and a new audience of children is enjoying them with parents who also enjoyed them when they were young.

The British author Allan Ahlberg is also prolific, but he does not illustrate his own books. His late wife Janet illustrated some of his early books, such as Each Peach Pear Plum and The Jolly Postman which are now classics and his daughter Jessica after illustrating Allan's Half a Pig has become an illustrator in her own right working with authors such as Mary Murphy and Vivian French. At school Jeremiah in the Dark Wood and Ten in a Bed are popular serials and the Funnybones series of books are always on loan from the library.