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!

13th March Janeen Brian

Janeen Brian will celebrate her birthday on the 13th March and I will get out her books for my preschool classes that visit on that day. I'm a Dirty Dinosaur  is such a favourite. The children love joining in with all the verbs. I have just purchased her new book, Little Chicken Chickabee  and I am eager to try it out. It too, has opportunities for joining in.

Of course she writes for older children as well. She has written several books for the Solo series for beginning readers, biographies for the Meet... series and novels for older readers. She is extremely versatile.

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!

28th March Skipping Day

Our school is a 'big' skipping school. We take part in Jump Rope for Heart and the kindergarten teachers make a point of teaching their children to skip each year and giving them time during most days to do some skipping before the big event. Last year the teachers told the children they would come to school in their pyjamas if they raised a certain amount of money. It was a very large amount and I don't think the teachers thought it would ever happen, but it did! So school in pyjamas happened.

So when I read it was Skipping Day in England today I thought I would investigate what they did in the way of skipping. It turns out that it is not a fundraising day, but purely about children, fun and good aerobic exercise. Schools can register, just like our Jump Rope and take part in activities that are planned and conducted by visitors to the school.

Today as I was putting Olive and the Big Secret  by Tor Freeman back on the shelf, I noticed that Olive always seems to have a skipping rope in her hands and then I went to the catalogue to see what other books could be used to  encourage skipping. There were three:
• Hop, Skip and Jump, Maisy!  by Lucy Cousins
• Ready, Set, Skip!  by Jane O'Connor and Ann James
• Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep  by Eleanor Farejon and Charlotte Voake.

And then two books with skipping rhymes:
• One Two Skip a Few by Roberta Arenson
• Schoolyard Rhymes by Judy Sierra and Melissa Sweet

And don't forget all those rhymes from your childhood like Cinderella dressed in yella, went upstairs...; Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black...; Teddy bear, teddy bear... etc  all collected together by June factor in Australia and Roger Abrahams in the USA.

19th September Libby Gleeson (1950)

This week at school I showed Year 1 an old episode of the ABC television series Book Bug, a dramatised version of Libby Gleeson's junior novel, Skating on Sand. The children sat transfixed except for the odd giggle at Hannah struggling to skate. When it was finished there was considerable discussion about how Hannah was treated by her older sisters. The viewers empathised with Hannah. They knew what it was like to be scared. They listed words to describe Hannah and came up with stubborn, determined, brave and persistent. We also had fun listing palindromes, an aside initiated by the children. When I showed them the novel and its sequels, they expressed surprise that it was by the same author who wrote Amy and Louis and Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House which they know much better. Someone said, 'I didn't know she wrote chapter books!' This would have been the ideal time to look at the catalogue and make a collection.

Libby Gleeson is a very versatile writer, writing right across the age spectrum. In the past I have enjoyed Eleanor Elizabeth and I Am Susannah with older classes and I would love to be teaching older children now so that I could share Mahtab's Story. Instead with my Year 2 classes next term I will get to share my favourite of Libby's picture books The Princess and the Perfect Dish. Each of her picture books is a delight, made very different by the choice of illustrator. Armin Greder, Julie Vivas, Ann James and Freya Blackwood, are so different in style that each book is fresh, and a new experience to be savoured.