24th - 31st October Honey Week

It is Honey Week in the UK, but I thought I'd dig out books that feature honey, put them out on display and celebrate in the library anyway.
All the pizza books went on the first day so I am hoping these will be borrowed too. Besides it's a good excuse to revisit Elizabeth Honey's poem Honey Sandwich which is in her book of poetry by the same name. There are masses of books about bees (see pinterest page here) but here I've included only the books that have honey in their title and where honey means that wonderful tasting golden syrup that bees produce, not someone's name.

3rd November Sandwich Day

Sandwich Day is celebrated on this date because it is also the birth date of John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich for whom the food is named. This 18th century earl 'invented' the sandwich because he wanted to be able to eat using only one hand while he was involved in a 24hour gambling event. He instructed his servants to put his meat between two slices of bread. Now it is a favourite food has a myriad of fillings in many places, especially at lunchtime, in schoolyards and on picnics. One might even argue that a hamburger is a form of sandwich.

At school our library display will include the books below. The Giant Jam Sandwich  has become a classic, The Disgusting Sandwich is among the list of most borrowed books in our library and Daddy's Sandwich is a new acquisition.

15th June The Power of a Smile Day

This week I have put together a small display highlighting how important it is to smile and the effect it can have because I wanted to celebrate Smile Power Day. I thought about doing this display after reading David Ezra Stein's book Because Amelia Smiled which tells about the pay forward concept that came about in New York when a small girl, Amelia smiled and this smile precipitated events all around the world. Walker Books says of it, 'David Ezra Stein's charmingly illustrated story reminds us that adding even a little kindness into the world is sure to spur more and more kindness, which could eventually make its way back to you!'

When I looked I found the library had all these other books about smiles too, among them:
• Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner
• Smile! by Leigh Hodgkinson
• It's Lovely When You Smile by Sam McBratney and Charles Fuge
• Where's Your Smile, Crocodile? by Claire Freedman and Sean Julian
• The Girl Who Lost Her Smile by Karim Alrawi and Stefan Czernecki
• Melrose and Croc Find a Smile  by Emma Chichester Clark

And at school this morning when I got the books off the shelves to display I shared Taking a Bath with the Dog and Other Things that Make Me Happy by Scott Menchin and talked about what did make us smile. The opening words ...'I miss your smile today, Sweet Pea. What would make you happy?' asks the mother and then by the end Sweet Pea tells her  'I'm happy when I ...' and she lists off all the things that make her smile. I also read the afterword where Scott Menchin talks about his motives for writing the story and how he came to realise that 'what made me happy was doing what I enjoyed most.' Such a great book to get children thinking about the small things in life and how to make lists.

Remember to give everyone a big smile today as smiling can be contagious! Just watch this trailer and you'll see the power of picture books to make you smile.

14th December Whose view?

Yesterday while writing and thinking about nativity stories, I realised how many there were where the narrator was an onlooker at the birth of Jesus and how often this was an animal. This is an interesting way to add some new interest to a well-known story. It allows the reader to look anew, to move their focus and to see different perspectives of an event.

I particularly like Michael Foreman's Cat in the Manger. I love the illustrations and the way they move the focus. I love Foreman's use of the colour 'blue', not a colour that you necessarily think of when you think of the nativity story and I like that the narrator is a cat, not the donkey, a sheep or a cow, animals you expect in the stable.

But there are others:

• The Witness: A Christmas Story by Robert Westall and Sophy Williams is also told from a cat's point of view. Here the cat is looking for somewhere to have her kittens and she finds a stable, the one where Mary is about to also give birth. The cat witnesses the birth and forms a bond with the family.

• On This Special Night by Claire Freedman and Simon Mendez. Here a mother cat and her kitten are asleep in their own barn when they are visited by other animals who are travelling to see a bright star in the sky. They too decide to set off to see what the star is for and they learn that it is indeed a special night.

• Room For a Little One: A Christmas Tale by Martin Waddell and Jason Cockcroft. Here Kind Ox invites all weary travellers to share the stable, including Old Dog, Stray Cat, Small Mouse and Tired Donkey who is carrying Mary by saying, "There's always room for a little one here."

• The Ox and the Donkey: A Christmas Story by Gunter Spang and Loek Koopmans. Here there is a lazy ox who eats more than his share of the food and a gentle donkey sharing the stable. When Mary and Joseph arrive, their kindness transforms the ox into a decent caring animal and the protagonists who were enemies, inspired by the miracle of Christmas become friends.

• Home For Christmas by Sally Grindley and Karin Littlewood. Unlike the others, here the focus is on a homeless child who sees Mary and Joseph at a market in the village and he wonders what it would be like to experience the warmth of a family. During the night he is awakened by a crying child and a bright light. This story explores the themes of home, family and belonging in more than one way.

While none of these books offer anything amazingly new, they are all by well known and revered picture book authors and illustrators, they do offer a different slant, a more personal touch for readers to connect to, each is specifically designed for a very young audience and each has very beautiful artwork which adds to the specialness of the event.

11th January Ann Tompert

I just read some sad news. Dick King Smith died on the 4th January. I know 88 is a good innings, but news like this is always hard to take knowing that there will be no new wonderful Dick King Smith stories. I love his humour and word magic. See 27th March entry for more about his books. Today I walked with my daughter and the dog she has been minding for the last three weeks. The dog is big and boisterous, but doesn't always seem in control of his feet and I couldn't help but think of one of the dogs in Dick King Smith's Puppy Love.

In the paper I also read about No Pants Subway Ride and had a giggle at the photos of people standing at stations in fully-clothed upper bodies but only their undies

and footwear on the bottom, all right in Sydney's hot weather, not so much fun in the winter weather of New York and Boston. Then I thought I bet it was a male who came up with this idea, one who spent all of his Year 1 at school reading about underwear. Six year old boys seem to be besotted with underwear books and luckily there is now so many of them, besides Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants, Michael Wagner's Undys series and Claire Freedman's Aliens in Underpants series that they have no trouble finding more. I can do an underwear display without even trying hard!

P.S. It is author Ann Tompert's birthday. I wrote about her book Joan of Arc just the other day, but another book of hers that is always worth digging out especially when talking about tangrams is Grandfather Tang's Story: A Tale Told With Tangrams.