24th August Ruth Park

It is Ruth Park's birthday. She was born in 1917 and died in 2010. She was the author of  a large number of books for adults and children. Her first children's book was The Muddle-Headed Wombat, but she would go on to write the award-winning children's classics  Callie's Castle; Playing Beat Bow  and When the Wind Changed.

Yesterday I attended the CBCA celebration for its eightieth birthday at the State Library of NSW. Many Australian authors and illustrators who had won Children's Book awards were present. It was so good to be reminded of all the wonderful books from the past and to see just how many of them are still in print, and rightly so. When Margaret Wild spoke she reminded us of her classic book There's a Sea in My Bedroom, which is still in print and regularly borrowed from the school library. In 1985 it made the shortlist for Picture Book of the Year. There was seven books on the shortlist, but none were chosen as the winner. The three commended books were:

MORIMOTO, Junko The Inch Boy 

BAKER, Jeannie Home in the Sky 

COX, David Ayu and the Perfect Moon were commended.

The others on the shortlist were: 

GYNELL, Donna  and Graham, Amanda Arthur 

LACIS, Astra and Mattingley, Christobel The Angel With a Mouth Organ 

WILD, Margaret and TANNER, Jane There’s a Sea in my Bedroom 

FOX, Mem and  VIVAS, Julie Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge 

The last two books are still in print and available to buy new. They have both stood the test of time. Perhaps one of them should have won!

The authors at yesterday's event were called 'legends' and many are still writing, illustrating and being published, but it always interests me when I look back at the winning books to see which ones are still popular. When the Wind Changed  by Ruth Park and illustrated by her daughter, Deborah Niland is one of those books, written long ago, but still in print. Many parents of today's children consider it very dated and inappropriate for young children because it has a gun in it and there is a bank robbery. The adage about what happens to your face when the wind changes is not one that is used these days. However, when you ask the teachers on the staff, 'What was your favourite book as a child?' so often some teacher (usually male) will say this book. One year we had a match the teacher to the book contest and I put the books out on display. Yes you guessed it, When the Wind Changed  was the book that was borrowed the most.

Each of these three books have had a fortieth anniversary edition. Will this year's winners still be in print in 40 years. I wonder.

29th November Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) C.S.Lewis (1898 - 1963) Jane Tanner (1946) Jackie French (1953) Adrian Reynolds (1963)

What a lot of birthdays! The first two, Louisa May Alcott and C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis need very little introduction and their classics, Little Women and the Narnia series of books were written for children older than those I teach, even though they know of them from movies, so I do not intend to write about them.

Jane Tanner is an Australian illustrator who lives in Melbourne and was a secondary school art teacher before becoming a fulltime illustrator. Each of her illustrations looks like a painting that could be framed and as such her illustrations are meticulous. She rarely does more than a book every year or so. She has said, "I've always been fascinated by the changes in mood created by the play of light in a particular place and time..." and this can beseen clearly in her Children's Book Council Picture Book of the Year winner Drac and the Gremlin which is written by Allan Baillie. There's a Sea in My Bedroom is another popular book that Jane illustrated.

Jackie French is also Australian. She is an author and far more prolific than Jane Tanner. She writes for a broad age group, doing humorous picture books, short stories, historical novels for young adults, historical non fiction and even gardening books. Her website tells you all about her and her myriad of books. For my children it is hard to go past her Shaggy Gully Books, in particular Diary of a Wombat. This book with its very minimal text amuses readers of all ages. And her Wacky Families series amuses my good Year 2 readers. They like to work their way through the lot once they been hooked with the first one, usually My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken.

Adrian Reynolds is the British illustrator responsible for Harry and the Dinosaurs with the author Ian Whybrow. Their website is amazing. It provides you with all sorts of reading record proformas, information for parents who are reluctant to read to their children, and things to use in the classroom. Of course Adrian has illustrated other books as well. A favourite in the library is Who's in the Loo? by Jeanne Willis, but as well as other Jeanne Willis books , he has done Michael Rosen's books about Bear and books for Jonathan Emmett.