18th September Kindness

World Kindness Day is celebrated on the 13th November and there has always been sufficient picture books to cater for each of the thirteen classrooms in my school, but lately every time I step into a bookshop I see another book on 'kindness' and they are not just picture books with kindness as a theme they are much more overt. The word 'kind' or 'kindness' is in the title of the book. Part of me thinks that it is sad that as teachers we are being asked to explicitly teach kindness when it was something that just 'was' and it was taught at home. Nevertheless it has become part of the social skills curriculum and if students do not understand what being kind means, then true empathy will be even harder to teach. One of the teachers at my school suggested I purchase You, Me and Empathy by  Jayneen Sanders for the library and she has been working on kindness with her students.

Along with the many books we have already, here is what has come onto the market recently (and I'm sure I will have missed some) which will supplement that collection.
• Be Kind  by Pat Zietlow Miller and Jen Hill
• I Walk With Vanessa by Kerascoet
• Kind by Alison Green
• Be Kind: You can make the world a happier place! by Naomi Shulman and Hsingpin Pan
• Be Kind! by Stephanie Clarkson and Katie Abey
• Kindness Makes Us Strong by Sophie Beer
• Kindness Grows by Britta Teckentrup
• The Kindness Book by Todd Parr
• Superbuns! : Kindness is her Superpower by Diane Kredensor
• A World of Kindness illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo et al.

PS I think you can read between the lines here and ascertain what I think about 'message' books, but just in case you need some more on this topic read this.

26th September T.S.Eliot (1888 - 1965) Libby Hathorn (1943) Rob Scotton (1960) Mark Haddon (1962)

With so many birthdays, this will be one of those a-little-bit -about-each-with-no-meat entries. For children T.S Eliot is probably best known for his poem Macavity - The Mystery Cat which I could recite movingly by mid-primary school. I think I even recited it at an eisteddfod one year. This poem comes from Eliot's book Old Pussum's Book of Practical Cats, a new edition of which was published last year. It is a beautiful book with illustrations by Axel Scheffler (of Gruffalo fame) which make it even more appropriate for young children.

Libby Hathorn is an Australian author who writes novels and picture books. I especially like her novels, but for my clientele her picture books are more relevant and recently I discovered one I hadn't read, Zahara's Rose. This wordy picture book (complete with six chapters) is set in the Middle East and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It has the feel of an exotic fairy tale with the added bonus of garden images. To learn more about Libby and her books see her website.

Rob Scotton is the English author/illustrator responsible for those irreverent characters Splat the Cat and Russell the Sheep, both of which now have a series of books about them. Rob's recent Splat title Scaredy-Cat, Splat has arrived just in time for Halloween. I had a giggle at the page where Splat's cat friends, Spike and Plank are dressed as a mummy and a skeleton. Splat is a sock spider. That's the sort of dress-up idea my mother would have had!

And lastly, Mark Haddon, famous for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is an English author who writes novels, but has several picture books that we have in the library.

See Ocean Star Express; The Ice Bear's Cave and The Sea of Tranquility. The last of these is beautifully illustrated by Christian Birmingham and it is about the first moon landing.

17th September

Julia Donaldson is a very prolific author of picture books. She creates very memorable characters and with the help of illustrators such as Axel Scheffler some of these characters have become very endearing. The children in my library love the Gruffalo. We have a stuffed toy version of him and he gets plenty of hugs! In the last school holidays many of the children went to see a live stage version of the Gruffalo and came back to school eager to report back about how good it was.It is hard to believe that The Gruffalo was first published over ten years ago. It is still fresh and exciting for young readers.

Many of Julia's books are written in verse or have accompanying song books. She says that this is because she comes from a musical family. It must be wonderful to live in Britain and to have Julia visit your school. I particularly like Room on the Broom and Zog which are also illustrated by Axel. Julia has other books that have been illustrated by Nick Sharratt, David Roberts and Lydia Monks and her newest book Cave Baby is illustrated by Emily Gravett. She certainly has been fortunate to attract such illustrators.