26th September International Rabbit Day

International Rabbit Day is celebrated on the  fourth Saturday of September each year. This day promotes the protection and welfare of both domestic and wild rabbits. Rabbits are considered pests in Australia as they have done so much damage to indigenous fauna's habitats, but it is nice to see that they do have a day of their own that has nothing to do with Easter. There are some wonderful books worth sharing too because books like these do not have a rush on borrowing at Easter. Where the rabbit in a story is not a toy, it is often adventurous just like Peter Rabbit in Beatrix Potter's classic.

See 

• The Wonderful Habits of Rabbits  by Douglas Florian and Sonia Sanchez. This is one long poem that begins

 ' The habits of rabbits are many, not few,

 with plenty of things that they love to do!'

• The Rabbit Problem  by Emily Gravett. This beautiful book follows a pair of rabbits through the year as they cope with their ever expanding brood. It is also a good introduction to Fibonacci and his number sequence!

• All Because of Jackson by Dick King Smith. Jackson, a rabbit wants to see the world so he stows away on a ship hoping to have adventures. This is just the way rabbits came to be in Australia!

• Tom Crean's Rabbit  by  Meredith Hooper and Bert Kitchen.  This is a true story about a rabbit that went to Antarctica with the Scott expedition!

• The Great Rabbit Chase by Freya Blackwood. This is the story of a mother and daughter who chase their escaped rabbit through the streets of town. Mum is wrapped in towel! Kindergarten love this story.

• One Runaway Rabbit  by David Metzenthen and Mairead Murphy. This too is a chase, but this time a fox is chasing the rabbit.

• The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers. This time a rabbit is trying to escape from the 'big black rabbit'. Children love to be in 'on the secret' when you read books like this where the big black rabbit is in fact a shadow.

28th December

American Diane Stanley writes in a variety of genre, many I have not seen. In Australia I have seen her biographies and fairytales, but from her magnificent website I now know there is more for me to explore. Her biographies of Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare are well-read in my library, but there are others, such as those about Michaelangelo and Cleopatra. Her fairytale spinoffs are humorous and thought-provoking for children who have begun to question stereotypes.

Australian author, David Metzenthen writes novels which are often adventure stories in a rural setting. Many of them are for readers older than my clientele, but because he has titles in the Aussie Bites and Aussie Nibbles my students have read him, recognise his name and will go on to read him in primary school. His Fort Island which is one of the Aussie Nibbles series is particularly good for a reader's circle discussion about risktaking. He also has a picture book The Rainbirds .

27th December Jill Tomlinson (1931 - 1976) Diane Stanley (1943) David Metzenthen (1958)

British author, Jill Tomlinson is one of my favourite authors for serial-reading in the library. Each chapter of her animal stories stands alone and the humour and the characterisation (really anthropomorphism) sustains the story until the next week and the next lesson. For me it is hard to reconcile Jill's multiple sclerosis pain with her humour, but I am sure it is the fact that she could not physically do the writing herself, that makes The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark and Penguin's Progress (renamed The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out) read aloud so well. These two stories never let me down. I read the first to Year 1 and the second to Year 2 every year and then they read the rest of her books themselves. Paul Howard who illustrated the new editions of the chapter books has also published some of the titles in picture book formats, and while they are beautiful, the text has been abridged and much of the humour has been lost. Therefore your library really needs to have both the chapter books and the picture books.

See tomorrow's entry for Diane Stanley and David Metzenthen.