16th Roller Coaster Day

National Roller Coaster Day is a day in which people are encouraged to get out to their favourite amusement parks and enjoy a ride on a roller coaster. 

Here's another of those words like icecream (ice cream) where I think of roller coaster as one word, rollercoaster because it is a new entity not a coast that rolls or a roll that coasts. I'm not a fan of roller coasters or ferris wheels as I like to have my feet flat on the ground, but I do know that many children love them and can't wait until they are tall enough to go on the one they want to ride.

If like me you would prefer to live vicariously and read about them, try these:

Information:

• Ride that Rollercoaster! by Louise and Richard Spilsbury

• Amazing Rollercoasters  by Anita Nathan Amin

• Ripley Readers: Roller Coasters

Stories:

• Roller Coaster  by Marla Frazee

• The Roller Coaster Ride  by David Broadbent

• The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster! by Mo Willems

•  I Am (Not) Scared  by Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant

•  B is for Construction  by June Sobel and Melissa Iwai

• Little Elliot Big Fun  by Mike Curato

• When Amelia Earhart Built a Roller Coaster  by Mark Weakland

• Shark and Bot: Epic Roller Coaster Ride by Brian Yanish

• Fox Tails: The Biggest Roller Coaster  by Tina Kugler

• Roller-Coaster  by David Mezenthen

• Heidi Hecklebeck and the Wild Ride  by Wanda Coven

• Spy Dog: Rollercoaster!  by Andrew Cope

• Bear Flies High  by Michael Rosen and Adrian Reynolds

Search this out in the library or on Youtube because the story is worthwhile

Bear is playing on the beach and, seeing the seagulls wheeling above him, decides that he would love to learn how to fly. And there are four children with him who know exactly how to make that happen.
An exhilarating story about friends helping each other to realise their dreams - and having great fun doing it

• The Screaming Mean Machine  by Joy Cowley and David Cox 

This story is also out of print, but you will find it on Youtube. It  epitomises all of the roller coaster feelings. The language is wonderful and so good for showing students how to express drama and tension in their own writing.

A young girl wonders if, now that she is big enough, she will be able to overcome her fears and ride the roller coaster at the amusement park. 

16th July World Snake day

It's World Snake Day! I'm certainly not enamoured of snakes, but the students I teach are. In fact the snake books in the library are nearly as popular as the shark books. Usually they want to borrow expository texts and marvel at the photos. We have many books that satisfy this need, the most popular probably being Damian Goodall's The Snake Book: Slip Sliding Away, but if you are looking for some picture books, these are some of the newer and more popular ones in the library:

• I (Don't) Like Snakes by Nicola Davies and Luciano Lozana
• Python by Christopher Cheng and Mark Jackson
• There's a Snake in My School!  by David Walliams and Tony Ross
• Boa's Bad Birthday by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
• Anna and Otis  by Maisie Paradise Shearring
• I Saw Anaconda by Emma Dodd and Jane Clarke

If you want to share a short novel, try:
• Akimbo and the Snakes  by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Snake Who Came to Stay by Julia Donaldson
• Snake and Lizard  by Joy Cowley

I have written about snakes before here.

7th August Betsy Byars(1928) Joy Cowley (1936)

Betsy Byars has written many books, novels such as The Pinballs and The Summer of the Swans which I have read to classes and loved, but most of her books are for children older than the clientele of my library, so it is a while since I have enjoyed an interaction with a class and one of her books.

New Zealander, Joy Cowley, on the other hand writes for my clientele abundantly and many of her books are favourites with the children I teach. Children learning to read just love Mrs Wishy-Washy, Greedy Cat and Nicketty-Nacketty, Noo-Noo-Noo. The humour, the rhythm, repetition and rhyme hooks them in and provides the scaffolding to keep them reading. More recently my better Year 2 readers have discovered Snake and Lizard and its sequel.