31st January Backwards Day

Backwards Day! What a good idea. Good excuse to wear your cap backwards, practise walking backwards, sitting on a chair backwards...let the children come up with ideas. Try telling a story backwards. Does it work? Is it good to know the solution before the problem?

Read Tell Me the Day Backwards by Albert Lamb and David McPhail. In this story Timmy Bear and his mother play a game just before going to sleep where Timmy has to tell his mother what happened during the day but in reverse order. This is probably a good way to review the day with young children because they often remember the more recent things and need to be prompted about earlier events.

With older children it can be fun to identify names that are spelled the same forwards and backwards, like Eve; Anna; Hannah; Otto and Elle. When I read Libby Gleeson's Skating on Sand to classes the discussion in the book of Hannah's name being a palindrome always elicits long list of other palindromes. Jill Tomlinson's The Penguin Who Wanted to Know has a penguin called Otto and another called Anna so it too is good to start palindrome discussion. If you just want to keep palindrome discussion brief introduce the picture book Mom and Dad are Palindromes by Mark Shulman and Adam McCauley and leave it out for your students to read.

30th June David McPhail (1940) Malachy Doyle (1954) Petr Horacek (1967)

David McPhail is an American author /illustrator who has a long list of books to his name. I especially like the way he illustrates bears so I seem to be drawn to his many titles that include bears. Drawing Lessons From a Bear is one of his books in our library that the children really enjoy.

The author Malachy Doyle was born in Northern Ireland, but now lives in Wales. His books appear to be very different from each other because of the different illustrators that have been chosen to illustrate his books. Cow and Horse which are illustrated by Angelo Rinaldi are striking looking books that you cannot fail to be drawn to. Look also for The Bold Boy which is illustrated by Jane Ray and Sleepy Pendoodle, a book about a gorgeous puppy which is illustrated by Australian Julie Vivas.

And thirdly, Petr Horacek who was born in Czechoslavakia, but now lives in England is the author/illustrator of many beautiful books. Suzy Goose got me hooked on his books and then I have eagerly purchased his subsequent titles. His most recent Fly, has shaped pages internally, bright colours and a story told from the fly's point of view. It makes you smile!