10th April National Farm Animals Day

Each year on April 10th, National Farm Animals Day focuses attention on the humane care of farm animals. This is a day celebrated in the USA, but it is pertinent here too, as we are in the midst of The Sydney Royal Easter Show (6th to 17th April), Australia's largest annual event.

Here, the country and the city join together to enjoy animal experiences, produce competitions, rural past times and carnival fun. This show was first held in 1823. It is run by the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW which rewards agricultural excellence and invests in agricultural programs and rural communities, so of course supports humane care of farm animals.

While there is not an abundance of books about the Royal Easter Show, there are these books: Show Day by Penny Matthews and Andrew McLean, The Show  by Nan Hunt and Bettina Ogden and A Day at the Show by Gwyn Perkins,

and of course, there are books about dog shows, cat shows and pony competitions a plenty.

A fun way to talk about how farm animals are cared for might be to look at books where the animals demand to be treated differently as they do in Farmer Duck  by Martin Waddell and Betty Cronin's series that started with Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type. 

Many of my Year 2 girls get hooked on the Juliet Nearly a Vet series by Rebecca Johnson because there is lots of animal care and competitions.

And these, just because they feature farm animals who triumph and are favourites!

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!

6th April International Pillow Fight Day

On Saturday April 6th 2013, there will be massive pillow fights in cities around the world, including here in Sydney. It looks to be lots of fun and perhaps that is why pillow fights seem to occur in children's picture books. Three books that immediately came to my mind were all Australian and by authors and illustrators who have won Children's Book Council awards.  Here they are, a Deborah Niland, a Catherine Jinks and Andrew McLean and a Jan Ormerod book, but I'm sure there must be more. Do you know a good pillow fight book?

 

7th January Bushfires

Once again parts of Australia are being ravaged by bushfires. It feels as if there have been so many years in my teaching career when I have gone back to school at the end of January to talk of bushfires and children asking questions about them. There are resources such as this put out by the Victorian Education Department to help teachers and students who have been 'touched' by the fires, but for children who know they have occurred but haven't experienced them first hand what do you give them to read?
I have used these picture books:
• Bushfire by Marguerite Hann Syme and David Cox. This is a picture book for 5 to 8 year olds showing very evocatively a hot blustery day when the sky fills with smoke and bushfires break out. Marguerite lived through the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 and has relived her experience through this book and a novel for older children called Burnt Out.
• Applesauce and the Christmas Miracle by Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King. This gives children a clear picture of the aftermath of fires, but also shows the sense of community that can develop during and after a crisis.
• Where There's Smoke by Robin Lovell and David Miller. This picture book comes with notes. See here for a clear precis and what can be done as follow up.
• Fire Engine Lil by Janet and Andrew McLean. This is old, but gives children an accurate picture of the urgency involved.
• Bushfire by Tricia Oktober. This too is old, but may be in your library. Here you get the animals' point of view of bushfires.

I am sure there is more, but as I teach very young children I am not as familiar with books for older children. I thought I could use this newspaper-like article and I can also use other books about firefighters and fireman such as these that I have written about before.

29th May Eleanor Coerr (1922 ) Andrew McLean (1946)

Eleanor Coerr was born in Canada and began her working life as a journalist. She visited Japan in 1949 to interview Japanese people about their after war experiences for the Ottawa Journal. She had trouble finding people who spoke English so she decided to learn Japanese. She spent three years in Japan travelling and writing. In 1963 she returned to Japan and while visiting Peace Park in reconstructed Hiroshima she saw a statue of Sadako Sasaki. This inspired her well-known book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes which so many school children all over the world have read, discussed, been angered by and then been inspired by to fold paper cranes and take part in peace activities. While the original novel is short and compelling, the story was made even more powerful for younger children when it was illustrated in 1985 by Ed Young.

Andrew McLean is a well-known Australian illustrator of children's books. He is quite prolific and most years he would have at least one book on the shortlist for a Children's Book Council of Australia Award. He won the Book of the Year: Early Childhood in the first year that it was awarded in 2001 for You'll Wake the Baby (written by Catherine Jinks) and then he won it again in 2003 for A Year on Our Farm (written by Penny Matthews).

That he is so successful at producing beautiful picture books is probably not surprising when you read that he has said, "I like drawing for young children. I am attracted to

the simplicity, honesty and directness of the picture book."

Andrew began his illustrating career illustrating stories written by his Kindergarten teacher wife Janet McLean. Their first book The Riverboat Crew was

published in 1978. Now he also illustrates books written by other authors. His newest, coincidentally both poetry books, A Goat in a Coat for Rosemary Milne, the author of the Play School jingle There's a Bear in There and an illustrated version of Dorothea Mackellar's poem My Country.