10th October Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day is held every year on the second Tuesday of October. This is not her birthday. That is on 10th December, too close to school holidays and Christmas to celebrate then. Today is a day to celebrate inspirational women in science, technology, maths and engineering, in the hope that by shining a light on such people and increasing their visibility, they can inspire future generations. 

There is so much written about Ada's personal life. She has been the subject of novels, plays and now a large number of picture book biographies.This means that a large number of young children get to know about her 'mathematical genius' and she has become quite a mentor for young girls who enjoy STEM subjects.If you are looking to add books to your library for children as young as eight, these are perfect.

• Ada's Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World's First Computer Programmer by Fiona Robinson

• Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Hallmark & April Chu 

• Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley & Jessie Hartland
and look out for these which will be here early in the new year

• Who Says Women Can't Be Computer Programmers  by Tanya Lee Stone & Marjorie Priceman

• Ada Lovelace by Isabel Sanchez Vegara &  Zafouko Yamamoto (part of the Little People Big Dreams series)

And there is a new series of bridging novels just available about an eight year old, third grade  student with a knack for maths, science and solving mysteries with technology.  Written by Emily Calandrelli, Ada Lace, On the Case is book 1 in the series.

9th July Ada's baptism

I have just come home from a lovely celebration for a friend's baby, Ada Grace. For the last week I have been agonising about what gift to give her. I always give this family books, so I felt quite sure they would expect me to arrive with books, but what to take? I had given Ada's older sister picture book bible stories for her baptism, but felt I had chosen the best of these then. So finally I decided to give Ada some books about exemplary Adas. Well as it turned out I had a lot to choose from, all of which she would grow into at some stage. In the end I bought a current favourite, Ada Twist, Scientist and one of the wonderful biographies on Ada Lovelace, Ada's Ideas, but it could have just as easily been any of these below. The one at the top right is book one of a new series about Ada Lace, an eight-year-old girl with a knack for science, maths, and solving mysteries with technology. It will be out in August and I will buy it for the library.

15th February World Whale Day

Driving through Mona Vale today I saw a sign advertising celebrations for World Whale Day and thought what a pity it was so close to so many other celebrations because children love whales and reading about them and it would have made a wonderful library display. Luckily in Australia we have National Whale Day as well in June so there will be another opportunity to put together a wonderful display of  books about whales.

In fact in the last month or so I have bought several new books for the library that feature whales and these four have especially memorable illustrations and are worth borrowing to read.

• If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano &  Erin Stead
• The Storm Whale by Benji Davies
• Whale Shines by Fiona Robinson
• Welcome Home by Christina Booth

And of course there's always older favourites that always work well when read aloud such as:
• The Lighthouse Keeper's Rescue by Ronda & David Armitage
• My Friend Whale by Simon James, and
•  The Morning I Met a Whale by Michael Morpurgo & Christian Birmingham