25th March Tolkien Reading Day

Tomorrow is a day to celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien, to encourage fans to celebrate and promote his life and works by reading favourite passages from his works.  A day that will remain a mystery to me as I have not read any Tolkien. I have been scarred for life! My Year 2 teacher who thought reading aloud should be part of her class's day and who also read aloud very well,  read us The Hobbit. I did not cope and I think I was one of the more capable children in the class. Maybe it went over their heads. It just disturbed me. I was seven years old and I had so many questions. 

Since then I cannot even attempt Tolkien or go to the movies of the books. I am not even keen on other fantasies where the characters are too far removed from normal people. I do love books and reading though and as a result of this I have always been very careful about matching my students to texts. I want to stretch them vocabulary and thinking-wise, but I don't want them to have their wellbeing disrupted.

I have been teaching for a very long time though and despite the fact that I am often surprised by what my young students have watched, their ability to visualise while being read to has changed greatly and what once worked as imaginary texts has changed too. I have been in the habit of sharing Jill Tomlinson books with classes. I find them humorous and each chapter stands alone well. The students I read it to recently laughed much less than those of other years. They liked the repetitions, but often did not think what a character did was unusual or funny. 

In a kindergarten class I thought I would share some poems for World Poetry Day. If it had any element of fantasy in it, they did not cope or laugh at all. When I read I've Never Seen a Purple Cow, they just kept saying 'no one would ever see a purple cow! That's not funny.' I read them a picture book version of The Owl and the Pussycat and they could retell the story. The consensus though was that it was silly and when I said that Edward Lear wanted it to be silly and to make you smile, it didn't make it any better. Just as I was despairing I finished with Hands by Julia Donaldson which they mimed aloud to and loved. When I told them who the poet was they rattled off a list of what she had written. The power of Julia Donaldson!

I did get to smile though, when a child asked to take home a copy of The Owl and the Pussycat for his mum. I'll ask him next week what mum thought. Meanwhile there is Bloomsday when we read Joyce, a day to read Tolkien,  a day to celebrate Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss and Eric Carle, so perhaps it's time to have a Julia Donaldson Day! I haven't always been a fan but the students I teach definitely are.

8th August International Cat Day

I haven't written about any form of Cat Day before because where do I start and finish when talking about children's books about cats, but today I had a thought. This week one of my Year 2 students was reading the picture book biography about Wanda Gag and that gave me reason to pull Millions of Cats  off the shelf to show her. What a good place to start a post about cat books!  This book was first published in 1928 and although illustrated in black and white, young students do still enjoy the repeating refrain and imagining that number of cats. Compare this with a very new 2016 cat' picture book, Brendan Wenzel's They All Saw a Cat which also has a repeating refrain, a clear, crisp cat, but looks very closely at perspective, point of view and subjectivity.

"The cat walked through the world, with its whiskers, ears and paws ...and the child saw A CAT, and the dog saw A CAT, and the fox saw A CAT. Yes, they all saw the cat.' In simple, rhythmic prose and ingeniously stylised pictures, Brendan Wenzel takes young readers on a walk alongside a cat."

And in between these two there has been a myriad of cat books and series of books with a cat as the main character.

Some favourites:
• The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
• Mog the Forgetful Cat by Judith Kerr
• Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine
• Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
• Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires
• Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin and James Dean
• Squishy McFluff the Invisible Cat by Pip Jones
• Ballet Cat by Bob Shea

And don't forget poetry!
• The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
• Cats Sleep Anywhere  by Eleanor Farjeon
• Macavity; Mr Mistoffelees; Skimbleshanks by T.S Eliot and Arthur Robins

12th May Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) Betsy Lewin (1937)

Every child knows Edward Lear if for no other reason than they know the poem The Owl and the Pussycat and they love limericks, a form of poetry he perfected. His poetry is irreverent and often literary nonsense, but always fun and filled with amazing sounding words, many of which he invented, such as the 'runcible' spoon used by the Owl and the Pussycat. His characters such as the Quangle-Wangle and the Jumblies ooze fun. Yes, his poetry and pictures are dated, but if shared, recited and discussed children will still love it. There are so many

picture book versions of The Owl and the Pussycat that it is fun to see which illustrations the children think fit the characters best when the voting is on.

The second birthday is that of Betsy Lewin, less than a week after her husband, Ted's. I first met Betsy's work when I read Chubbo's Pool to a class. This book about a selfish hippo is perfect for circle time, when you want to discuss sharing, co-operation and/or

exclusion. The illustrations are very reminiscent of Ted Lewin's and very different from the more well-known Betsy Lewin pen and watercolour illustrations that accompany Doreen Cronin's Cows That Type series of books. Whichever style of illustration she

chooses she manages to imbue her animals with plenty of personality! I am sure that Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin have lots of fun with those cows and ducks.