24th May Escargot Day

Escargot Day is observed each year on May 24th. This day is in honour of the famous French dish of cooked land snails. Escargot is French for edible snails, an acquired taste that was popular in French restaurants in the past, but not so much now. I couldn't find when Snail Day was celebrated so decided to put together a display of 'snail' books to honour the 24th. The students at my school learn French and we have an abundance of wonderful books which feature snails, so why not?

If you are doing this too, start with these picture books:
• Escargot by Dashka Slater & Sydney Hansen. This is such fun and can be found here on Youtube if you don't have a copy of the book.
• Snails Legs by Damian Harvey and Korky Paul
• Super Snail by Elys Dolan
• Snails Are Just My Speed by Kevin McCloskey
• Snail Trail by Ruth Brown
• The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman
• The Biggest House in the World by Leo Lionni
• Snail and Turtle Are Friends and Snail and Turtle Rainy Days  by Stephen Michael King
• Matisse's Magical Trail by Tim Hopgood and Sam Boughton 
• Snippet the Early Riser by Bethanie Deeney Murguia
• Clementine by Sebastian Loth
• Sylvia  by Christine Sharp


Just a few information books:
• Watch Out Snail! by Gail Hay
• Let's Look at Snails by Michelle Levine
• Snail-Snaily-Snails by Bonnie Bader
' Here are some chapter books worth looking for:
• Snail and Worm by Tina Kugler (this is a series)
• Annie's Snails by Dianne Wolfer
• The Adventurous Snail by Dick King Smith
• Sophie's Snail by Dick King Smith (this is one of six Sophie adventures)
• The Worst Child I Ever Had  by Anne Fine
• The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow by Luis Sepulveda



And for fun look for these two art books
• Snail Trail: A Journey through Modern Art by Jo Saxton
• How the Snail Found It's Colours by Jeong-Yi Kee

20th October International Sloth Day

October 20th, 2015 is International Sloth Day, so says this website. Other sites say that it is the third Saturday in October which means that it was last Saturday, 17th October. Whenever it is doesn't matter because there is so much fun to be had with young children and reading about sloths. There are so many picture books to explore, film clips to watch and toy sloths to hug. See the amazing sloths made by Andrea Vida among other more commercial ones. The books below are in our library. If these are not enough see pinterest page here.

1st March Pig Day

In the USA today it is National Pig Day. Dick King Smith would be pleased, because as a pig farmer he thought all pigs were beautiful and wrote a book saying so. Even if you don't think they are beautiful  you do have to wonder why they are so endearing in so many children's books. Take the phenomena of Peppa Pig.  The three and four year olds just cannot get enough of her. The box that houses her books is always empty. Wibbly Pig  is another favourite with the preschoolers and we have a box full of them as well. Then the preschoolers start school and the boxes of Elephant and Piggie  become the new favourites.  By Year 2 , a new series about pigs becomes a favourite - Mercy Watson by Kate DiCamillo. See, pigs everywhere! Year 2 also love Wilbur  from Charlotte's Web  and Babe or The Sheep Pig, as Dick King Smith's book was called long before the movie popularised it.

Walking through Big W yesterday I saw a large print,  hardback Charlotte's Web with Garth William's illustrations coloured in. Such a bargain at $18.00.

Added to these books are other series such as Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Pig ..., Colin McNaughton's Preston Pig, Kristi Yamaguchi's ice-skating Poppy  and the numerous versions of The Three Little Pigs  and the myriad of spoofs or fractured versions of it. And how many children's books are called Pigs Can't Fly? Obviously we should be celebrating Pigs!

13th December Russell Hoban RIP

Terrible news. Russell Hoban has died aged 86. Together with Dick King Smith this means two greats of the Children's Literature world have gone this year, one at the beginning of the year (January 5) and the other at the end.

I get so much pleasure watching and listening to children when I read Hoban's Whitbread prize winner How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen and my favourite Ace Dragon Ltd to them. They are also very animated about the Frances stories because they realise that Frances is really them not a badger.

Perhaps publishers will acknowledge Hoban's great contribution to children's books by reissuing Ace Dragon Ltd and I will pay homage to him by watching the wonderful Glenda Jackson movie of his book Turtle Diary.

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.