29th April World Wish Day

World Wish Day occurs on the 29th April each year and originated because of a seven year old child who was sick with leukaemia wishing for something to happen in 1980. His wish was granted and when people heard about it the Make-A-Wish Foundation was founded. It has become a well-known world-wide children's charity but I am writing about this day because of a request I had from a preschool teacher at the end of last term for books about 'wishing'. She had been talking to her class about wishes and realised that the children didn't really know what a wish was when she asked them what they would wish for during an activity.

There are so many books I could have given her. Narrowing it down to a small number was hard. Most of the picture books with 'wish' in the title have a Christmas setting so I avoided them except for Jane Godwin and Anna Walker's beauty, What Do You Wish For? , and gave her that and these:

• Wish by Roseanne Thong and Elisa Kleven
• I Wish... by Nick Ward
• I Wish For More by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
• The Wish Giver by Roseanne Hawke and Lenore Penner
• The Wish Factory by Chris Riddell
• The Fish Who Could Wish by Korky Paul
• The Wish Tree  by Kyo Maclear and Chris Turnham
• The Wishing Boat by Amanda Tarlau and Chris Saunders



We all make wishes and these wishes differ greatly in magnitude but it was interesting to see that a concept we as adults take for granted was something the three and four year olds at an affluent school needed to be introduced to through planned intervention. The classroom now has a wish tree and they talk about wishes and wishing in their regular discourse. If you have none of the books above buy The Wish Tree  or watch it here. Danielle Davis from the blog This Picture Book Life outlines an accompany activity she has planned for the book here and there are other ideas on the web.

14th October Lois Lenski (1893 - 1974) e e cummings (1894 - 1962) Miriam Cohen (1926) Elisa Kleven

Lois Lenski was an American author illustrator who won the Newbery medal for her novel Strawberry Girl in 1946, but she also wrote and illustrated many picture books. The ones about Mr Small are still available and of interest to young children interested in trains, firemen, policemen and the like. She also wrote poetry and worked tirelessly for the disadvantaged. She setup the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation which aims to advance literacy and foster a love of reading among underserved and at-risk children and youth. The foundation provides grants to public libraries, school libraries, and non-profit agencies serving disadvantaged populations. It has been in operation for more than forty years.

e e cummings or Edward Estlin Cummings was an American poet who was the second-most read poet after Robert Frost. He wrote for adults, but many of his poems have become popular with children. If and The Tree are two that have done this. The Tree has been published several times in picture book format. My library has the version illustrated by Mary Claire Smith, but Chris Raschka and others have also done it. Cummings experimented with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax even going as far as abandoning punctuation often. That is why his name is always written in lowercase and without fullstops.

Miriam Cohen is also American. She is the author of many picture books for very young children including a series called First Class Friends, but in my library her two classics about friendship, Will I Have a Friend? and Best Friends are well used by Kindergarten classes.

I wrote about Elisa Kleven last year and I haven't found out much more. I still do not know in which year she was born.

10th May Linda Glaser

Linda Glaser is an American author who understands how difficult it is for some children to learn to read. She says on her website that 'when I was a kid, I used to say I hated reading. That's because it was so hard for me. I struggled and struggled and sometimes feared I’d never get the hang of it. However, I loved books! Some of my fondest memories are of being read to by my mother. I still love being read to. But I did finally learn to read on my own - in third grade.' Linda has a keen interest in the environment and immigration and the themes of her books reflect this. Her books are not so easy to find in Australia, but my library has her long poem Our Big Home; An Earth Poem which is illustrated by Elisa Kleven and it is a gem. I hope Emma's Poem comes here too.

14th October Elisa Kleven

Elisa Kleven is an American author/illustrator who lives in San Francisco. I found this out when researching picture books about bridges and found that many of her books had the Golden Gate Bridge in them. Her illustrations flow effortlessly, are detailed and colourful and most noticeably they are exuberant. My library has only six of her books, the three Paper Princess stories, Ernst, Our Big Home (written by Linda Glaser) and The Weaver (written by Thacher Hurd) and looking at her website I find that there are many more. Maybe they are not easy to find in Australia. You can watch an interview with her and see more of her artwork here. The illustration above comes from Elisa's website and I have chosen it rather than book covers because:

1. I love it. It is from The Weaver.

2. There is so much debate on the web at the moment about picture books that it is good to reminded regularly of their value.