August Happiness Happens Month

Happiness Happens Month is observed every August. Created in 2000 this annual observance encourages people to recognise small moments of joy, appreciate what makes them happy, and share that positive energy with others. 

It reminds us that joy comes in small, everyday moments. It shows that being happy is contagious.  It also helps build a positive and supportive community.

This August has been very happy so far. I have been travelling in Canada enjoying some of the things that I like most: trees, books and passionate people who share books with children. I went to Ottawa to attend the 40th IBBY World Congress, an event that looks at bringing children and books together. The theme was 'Listening to Each Other's Voices'. 

The congress celebrated indigenous voices, something of importance in Canada because there are so many indigenous voices, but there are many similarities for indigenous children's book creators here in Australia. In 2024 Australia's Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) received the Astrid Lindgren Award and they were represented at the congress showcasing the books they have  listed to secure access to good literature for First Nations children of Australia. 

At the congress we heard about wonderful programs that continue Jella Lepman's vision to connect children to books in times of great need. We met and listened to Canadian picture book creators such as David Robertson, Jon Klassen, Sidney Smith, Kathy Stinson, Barbara Reid and Margriet Ruurs. And an added bonus, Michael Rosen, this year's Hans Christian Anderson Medal winner for writing, Michael Rosen gave the conference dinner address.

I saw many animals that I have never seen; bald eagles, kingfishers, Canadian geese, puffins, a lynx, a pink ibis, a river otter, capybaras, caiman, groundhogs and black squirrels. Wow!

Now that I'm home I have to bottle that happiness and take it back to school with me on Monday. I have so much to tell my students. I must remember to use my moments of joy to make someone else happy.

If unlike me, you feel the need to use some good picture books as provocations for the topic of happiness, try these:

Happy All Over  by Emma Quay

An irresistible celebration of the small joys to be found in the everyday.

This is My Happy Place  by Emma Bowd

Celebrate the places, people and things that bring us joy in this uplifting and spirited book.

This is Happy! by Anna Ross & Debi Gliori

This joyful picture book is full of delight in the world, outdoors and indoors, showing how happiness can be found in the smallest things. It encourages children to slow down and use all their senses to notice and enjoy the natural world. Happiness is truly all around us.

Where Happiness Begins by Eva Eland

Are you looking for happiness? Sometimes it can feel really far away, and sometimes you might have so much you can’t help but share. You can try to chase it, control it or capture it, but even if it seems like it’s gone for a while, you’ll know it’s never far away...

Layla's Happiness  by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie 

Seven-year-old Layla loves life! So she keeps a happiness book. What is happiness for her? For you?

 A Sprinkle of Happiness  by Lucy Rowland

"A sprinkle of happiness ... that's all you need!"
When a boy and his grandma find a tiny sunflower seed and plant
it together, their love and care transforms it into a towering
sunflower that spreads joy through their community. 

Curious Creatures Armadillos (Armadillo Day is the 13th August)

I have been contemplating talking to my students about armadillos because at the moment many of them think aardvarks and armadillos are interchangeable. This is not a major issue because we have neither of these animals in Australia and it is much more important that they know about animals such as echidnas, bandicoots and bilbies etc that live here, but as we are talking about 'curious creatures' and we have books that feature them I thought I would do a little bit of research.  Firstly I noticed that a new Jon Klassen book is about to hit the shelves next year and it has an armadillo in it. Here's the publisher's blurb for The Rock From the Sky

"Turtle really likes standing in his favorite spot. He likes it so much that he asks his friend Armadillo to come over and stand in it, too. But now that Armadillo is standing in that spot, he has a bad feeling about it . . . 

Here comes The Rock from the Sky, a hilarious meditation on the workings of friendship, fate, shared futuristic visions, and that funny feeling you get that there’s something off somewhere, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Merging broad visual suspense with wry wit, celebrated picture book creator Jon Klassen gives us a wholly original comedy for the ages."

Now this armadillo does not look particularly like the ones we have in other books, so all the more reason I need to find a photograph. All the species of armadillos can be found in the Americas. This website gives some good photos and some interesting facts.

Here's the books the library has:

             

• Armadillos by Kate Riggs

• Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World by James Sturm

• The Armadillo fom Amarillo by Lynne Cherry

• Willow the Armadillo by Marilou Reeder and Dave Mottram

• Arnie the Accidental Hero  by Joanne Partis

• Milo Armadillo by Jan Fearnley

• Armadillo Ray  by John Beifuss and Peggy Turley

• An Armadillo in Paris by Julie Kraulis

• Accident! by Andrea Tsurumi

• The Wishing Stone by Steve Smallman and Rebecca Elliott

• The Beginning of the Armadillos by Shoo Rayner 

and two series for chapter book reading young readers

• Hare and Armadillo  by Jeremy Strong

• Adventure Duck vs the Armadillo Army by Steve Cole

5th February Pondering Holes

I've just finished Week 2 of term1 at school and it has been both busy and interesting. In the library we catalogued a new book, Holes by Jonathan Litton. Here's the blurb

Delve into this fascinating book of holes to discover a world of 
burrows and boreholes, subways and sinkholes. From the 
mythical and mysterious to household and human holes,  
find out what makes a hole a hole and how they shape our world. 

It is quite a thick tome for our age group, but it is full of fascinating information, including a section about the philosophy of holes. This led to quite a lot of conversation and  laughter among the library staff and of course it led us off on to all sorts of tangents. Is there a day to celebrate 'holes'? Well, no not really. There is a 'My Bucket's Got a Hole Day' on 30th May, but not one that covers all sorts of holes. Maybe because the phrase 'whole day' is a common one.

There is an amazing number of picture books that feature the word 'hole' in their title though. Of course that started us off on a display. See here for the books the library has. You'll notice these books don't all have the word in the title because we then started thinking about what 'hole' means...'an opening through something' and other words for 'hole'...gap; aperture; cavity; dent; void; pit; cranny; burrow; crater; and even tunnel.

Some picture books for young children are about physical holes, things to  dig, carrying on from Ruth Krauss' classic A Hole is to Dig. Julia Donaldson's One Mole Digging a Hole and Mac Barnett's  Sam and Dave Dig a Hole do this, but books such as Kelly Canby's The Hole Story and Paul Bright's The Hole Story start to play with the meaning of the word 'hole'. Then books such as the very special The Hole  by Oyvind Torseter really start to get at the philosophy of holes.

I grew up besotted with stories about smuggling and caves, probably because of Enid Blyton and stories such as The Secret of Spiggy Holes. My own children grew up being readers who kept revisiting  Louis Sachar's novel, Holes, so obviously holes and their many incantations provide copious ideas for stories. And of course any display has to include books such as Alice in Wonderland which has a hole as a pivotal part of the plot.

Collect a whole lot of hole stories and go make a hole in your reading time!

29th November Jon Klassen (1981)

Jon Klassen is the Canadian writer and illustrator of children's books who won both the American Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration, for his 2012 picture book This is Not My Hat.  He is the first person to win both awards for the same work. This is a wonderful book, but he has been involved in the publication of many other fabulous books such as I Want My Hat Back and the very recent one Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, which he did with American author Mac Barnett.  Like Klassen, Barnett is young. He was born on 23rd August 1982.

Recently the two of them appeared on a television show where they talked about their new book, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and they looked like they were enjoying themselves so much that it is easy to see why together their books work so well with young audiences. A hole seems like an unlikely subject for a very successful book, but add the diamond and the visual humour that goes with them missing it and it turns into a book that the children 'just get'. The trailer is very funny too! I'm sure there will be much more yet to come from this duo both separately and together.

29th June Beanie Festival

Alice Springs has just held their annual Beanie Festival and it never ceases to amaze me what some people can make from wool. There are beanies that take book characters has their starting point. There are yet others that tell a whole story. A beanie depicting The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a winner. There was another depicting The Rainbow Serpent. One lady even managed to fit the whole of Ned Kelly's Gang on a beanie.

One of the book displays last term was of all the books in the library about knitting and yarn. The newest inclusion was Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. This story celebrates a young girl, Annabelle's ingenuity as she goes about changing her monochromatic world by knitting for everyone. This book has also just won The Boston Globe-Horn Award for excellence in children's literature, but it was very hard to move off the shelf in my library. Compared to the colourful covers of other books it just did not appeal to my young audience. I will need to do more to sell it.

While on the subject of wool though, I need to tell you that two six year old boys in my Book Club were having a quiet chuckle and discussion about a page in Nadia Shireen's Good Little Wolf where the little wolf has wrapped the big wolf in wool.

I can't find it to show you so you'll have to find the book. It is funny and highly improbable and thus appealing. The book also has a good ending, one that not many authors would risk in this day and age for this age group!