Read Grow Inspire Book Week Slogan 2023 (Part 3) READ

 READ    WHY?

Were you born to read? I hope so. This is a great book to start any discussion about reading, why we read and the power of reading. Here is the blurb for Born to Read which is out of print but you will find it in a library or on Youtube.

"the narrative chronicles the amazing successes of Sam--thanks to his early love of books. The story ranges from Sam's infancy, when his mother reads him a picture book ("then another, then another, then another . . . such a perfect, patient mother"), to school age, when he cleverly uses some of his favorite books to rid his town of the rampaging baby giant, Grundaloon. 'Here's my secret, ' Sam decreed. 'Readers win and winners read.' Marc Brown's playful pictures joyously complement this fun-to-read, upbeat story."

Sam certainly is an inspiration!

There are activity pages from the publisher here that you could use or adapt for your students.

If your students are older read a poem from Read! Read! Read! by Amy Ludwig Van Derwater and Ryan O'Rourke. Here there are 23 inspirational poems to explore. In Pretending  a small girl remembers how in the beginning she felt reading was hard, but for days, weeks, months she practised, then

"Learning to read 

felt like  

learning to fly.  

And one day  

I took off. 

I was swooping  

alone 

over words 

once confusing 

but now 

all my own.”

The artwork in this book is also inspiring.

Image copyright Ryan O’Rourke, 2017. Courtesy of WordSong Publishing.

Image copyright Ryan O’Rourke, 2017. Courtesy of WordSong Publishing.

Another source you could explore as provocation with older students is the poem English by T.S.Wyatt which explores the pronunciation of so many unusual English words. The students will need to see the poem to appreciate it fully. There are many versions on line that you can download. Students will laugh at this poem, only if they can read it. That is the power of it. You need to be a reader!

There is a collection of picture books about reading here, so if you cannot access those above you may choose something from here. They all have the power of reading as their theme. If I was a classroom teacher who read a book day I would choose five books to read. 

1. Born to Read by Judy Sierra and Marc Brown

2. A Story for Bear  by Dennis Haseley and Jim LaMarche (click on title for activities. The last one is very special *)

3. No Buddy Like a Book  by Allan Wolf and Brian Farley

4. Rectangle Time by Pamela Paul and Becky Cameron

5. When You Open a Book  by Caroline Derlatka and Sara Ugolotti 

Or read a biography or a book about learning to read such as

1. The Oldest Student  by Rita Lorraine Hubbard and Oge Mora

2. Mr George Baker  by Amy Hest and Jon J. Muth

3. Thank You, Mr Falkner by Patricia Pollacco

4. The Girl Who Buried Her Dreams in a Can by Tererai Trent 

5. More than Anything Else by Marie Bradby and Chris K. Soenpiet

 * leave your students a collection of books like woman left bear. Put down  a cloth blanket and on it put some pinecones, leaves and a stack of books from your classroom library. To make it extra special, get a realistic looking grizzly bear plushy and leave a handwritten note from bear, maybe something along the lines of “To _____’s class – Bear would love it if you continued to read to me this year.

28th March Skipping Day

Our school is a 'big' skipping school. We take part in Jump Rope for Heart and the kindergarten teachers make a point of teaching their children to skip each year and giving them time during most days to do some skipping before the big event. Last year the teachers told the children they would come to school in their pyjamas if they raised a certain amount of money. It was a very large amount and I don't think the teachers thought it would ever happen, but it did! So school in pyjamas happened.

So when I read it was Skipping Day in England today I thought I would investigate what they did in the way of skipping. It turns out that it is not a fundraising day, but purely about children, fun and good aerobic exercise. Schools can register, just like our Jump Rope and take part in activities that are planned and conducted by visitors to the school.

Today as I was putting Olive and the Big Secret  by Tor Freeman back on the shelf, I noticed that Olive always seems to have a skipping rope in her hands and then I went to the catalogue to see what other books could be used to  encourage skipping. There were three:
• Hop, Skip and Jump, Maisy!  by Lucy Cousins
• Ready, Set, Skip!  by Jane O'Connor and Ann James
• Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep  by Eleanor Farejon and Charlotte Voake.

And then two books with skipping rhymes:
• One Two Skip a Few by Roberta Arenson
• Schoolyard Rhymes by Judy Sierra and Melissa Sweet

And don't forget all those rhymes from your childhood like Cinderella dressed in yella, went upstairs...; Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black...; Teddy bear, teddy bear... etc  all collected together by June factor in Australia and Roger Abrahams in the USA.

20th January Penguin Appreciation Day

Penguins are an especially popular choice of character in children's books! They are endearing, different from other birds because they can't fly, live on ice and can dive and swim in a way that humans envy.Why then do we need to have an Appreciation or Awareness Day for penguins? It really is just a time to celebrate penguins, but it is also a good time to reflect on the fact that some of the 17 species of penguins are being threatened by climate change.

What to read? Here's some fiction and non-fiction that is enjoyed in my library:

• Cuddly Dudley by Jez Alborough

• The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out by Jill Tomlinson and Paul Howard

• Solo by Paul Geraghty

• Nanu, Penguin Chick by Theresa Radcliffe and John Butler

• Emily and Alfie by Meredith Hooper and Emma Quay

• Little Penguin by Patrick Benson

• The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins and Jane Chapman

• The Emperor's Kingdom; Living on the Ice by Roger Kirkwood

• Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems by Judy Sierra and Ariane Dewey

• The Penguin Book: Birds in Suits by Dr Mark Norman

and of course there's always the Atwater's Mr Popper's Penguins and the myriad of movie

s and DVDs about penguins and Jeanne Willis' new book Penguin Pandemonium.

8th June Judy Sierra (1945) Penny Dale (1954) Best Friend's Day

I wrote about American author Judy Sierra's birthday last year, but this week I purchased Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf! for a unit of work on 'wolves and fairytales' which I have planned for a Year 1 enrichment program and I was so excited by it that I had to write about Judy's birthday again so I could tell the world what a good book it is! B.B.Wolf visits the library (any book with a library in it is worth reading...) and resists all temptation to eat anything. It is such a giggle. Now I need to order Tell the Truth, B.B. Wolf! which is also illustrated by J.Otto Seibold and which I didn't know about till now when I looked at Judy's website.

It is also British author illustrator Penny Dale's birthday. She is well known to the children in my library because of Ten in the Bed and Ten Out of Bed which are on the Premier's Reading Challenge list. She has several other books though which are just as worth reading and her most recent one, Dinosaur Dig is sure to be a hit because it has preschool boys' three favourite things, dinosaurs, diggers and building sites.

And thirdly, it is Best Friend's Day, a good day to search out all those best friends in literature such as:

• Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

• George and Martha by James Marshall

• Houndsley and Catina by James Howe and Marie-Louise Gay

• Dog and Bear by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

• Gossie and Gertie by Olivier Dunrea

• Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes

• Bear and Chook by Lisa Shanahan and Emma Quay

• Cat and Fish by Joan Grant and Neil Curtis

8th June Judy Sierra (1945) World Oceans Day

Judy Sierra began her working career as a children's librarian so her books must be good! Most of her stories are written in verse and many draw inspiration from the act of reading or things such as folktales that she has read. Her website is extremely informative. If you do not know her books start with these two, illustrated by Marc Brown, Wild About Books and Born to Read. In the first Molly McGrew, the librarian accidentally drives her bookmobile into the zoo and then embarks on a reading adventure with animals. In the second a young boy, Sam, has a passion for reading and the reader can't help but get the passion too.