6th September

I don't have a birthday listed for today, but as I continue to add birthdays to my calendar, I find ones that I have missed. I missed Geraldine McCaughrean's and as hers was on the 6th June (1951), I thought I would do it today, just three months late. She is a British author who writes across a wide age range, from early readers to adults. She has won the Whitbread Children's Book Award a record three times for novels she has written.

Geraldine McCaughrean is especially good at retellings of traditional tales for primary-school-aged children. Year 2 become very excited about her books while studying Greek Mythology. She has written large illustrated anthologies of stories such as Greek Myths and Greek Gods and Goddesses as well as a set of beginning novel-type Greek myths that are part of an Orchard myths series. In 2005 she was selected to write the official sequel to J.M.Barrie's Peter Pan. It is called Peter Pan in Scarlet.

The library also has a number of picture books and early readers such as the Wizziwig series that are also written by Geraldine.

5th September Father's Day

There are so many books in my library that we put out for Father's Day displays, and the young children are so enamoured of their fathers that they rush to borrow them. Many borrow them to read to their father. Mothers borrow them to read with their children too. The same does not happen when it is Mother's Day! Some of my favourites are pictured here. Dennis Whelehan's The Dad Library is out of print, but may be in your library too. It tells the story of a child who thinks he would like a father with other attributes, only to realise that there is something 'wrong' with every dad. David Cali's A Dad Who Measures Up, similarly looks at what makes a good dad, but this time from the perspective of a young girl who is looking for a dad who needs to be as good as her mum. I like the humour of Tony Bradman's Not Like That, Like This! where a father explains to his son at length what not to do and then does it himself. And I have included Geraldine McCaughrean's Father and Son, in case you are looking for a book for a liturgy or chapel, and this one looks at the father and son relationship of Joseph and Jesus.