26th November Cake Day

It's Cake Day tomorrow! Let them eat cake! 

This post is for my cake-loving, book-loving friend who had her birthday yesterday. I feel guilty because I didn't make her a cake and made her make do with a cinnamon bun.

There are so many picture books to satisfy any love of cake. Here's weeks worth:

• I Love Cake!  by Tammi Sauer and Angie Rozelaar

• I Really Want the Cake!  by Simon Philip and Lucia Gaggiotti

• Whopper Cake by Karma Wilson and Will Hillenbrand

•  Cake  by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet

• Every Cake Has a Story  by Christina Tosi and Emily Balsley

•  Just the Right Cake  by Christina Tosi and Emily Balsley

• Where Has All the Cake Gone?  by Andrew Sanders and Aisha Awaad

and a series Monkey and Cake by Drew Daywalt and Olivier Tallec

If you can't find these at your library, substitute any of these other titles.

6th October Badger Day

National Badger Day is celebrated on the 6th October annually. I find badgers beguiling. On a recent trip to Britain I was desperate to see one and when I asked where to see one this well-meaning woman said to me, "Oh dear, the only place you'll see one is dead on the side of the road." I continued my road trip and didn't give this comment too much more thought until the last day when about a kilometre from the airport as we were about to return our hire car I saw a badger, dead on the side of the road. In Australia we are quite used to 'roadkill' so my reaction I thought was completely out of character. I was a blubbering mess. 

Probably the first time I thought about badgers, as we don't have them in Australia, was when reading Wind in the Willows. Then when I started teaching Susan Varley's Badger's Parting Gifts was in every classroom and it made me sad. I wanted badger books that were happier and found Nick Butterworth's Percy the Park Keeper series where forest animals appeared so appealing. 

Now there are many more books to choose from in my library and I could put together a lovely display to celebrate today, starting with a plush badger bought at IKEA of all places. Jane Chapman's badgers always look friendly and fun in her illustrations for Karma Wilson's Bear stories. Her badger  in Paul Bright's  Grumpy Badger's Christmas even makes me smile.

The children in my library enjoy three 'badger' series:
• Suzanne  Chiew and Caroline Pedler's  Badger and the Great Storm, Badger and the Great Rescue, and Badger and the Great Journey

• The Mr Badger and Mrs Fox series by Brigitte Luciani  and Eve Tharlet. These five picture books are popular with my children who like the graphic novel format but are looking for shorter stories with coloured pictures.

• And of course there is Leigh Hobbs'  Mr Badger books which have dedicated Year 1 and 2 boy followers.

There are other stand alone picture books, but those above  will get you started on  a good display.

28th April - 3rd May Stop Snoring Week

Whenever a book has snoring in it the children at school laugh and tell you stories about how their father snores. They love making the snoring noises as required for a story as well so I thought I would just explore how many books were in the library on the topic of snoring besides the children's favourite My Daddy Snores by Nancy H Rothstein.  There were more than I thought there would be. Here's some good ones.
• The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood.
• Dinosnore! by John Bendall-Brunello
• Bear Snores On  by Karma Wilson
• Stop Snoring Bernard  by Zachariah Ohora
• Snoring Beauty by Rachel Mortimer
• Snorey Time by Meg Pybus, which strictly speaking isn't about snoring but about not wanting to sleep and many a parent wants what this book has to offer.

26th December

It is Boxing Day and I maybe should be thinking about boxes, but having done boxes before for a great display in the library and the box construction club (see http://pinterest.com/kinderbookboard/cardboard-boxes/) I feel inclined to write about something else I have observed lately.

A couple of days ago I bought The Bear with the Sword by David Cali and as I read it and looked at the bear and his behaviour I was reminded of  two other bear picture books I had bought this year,  Bear Has a Story to Tell by Philip Stead and Erin Stead and Bear in Love  by Daniel Pinkwater and Will Hillenbrand. How do illustrators make bears have such human expressions? Each bear is different but so imbued with human mannerisms. My favourite bear is the one in Sebastian Meschenmoser's Waiting For Winter. He makes me smile every time I look at him trying to work out what snow is. None of these bears appear to be 'wild' or 'grizzly'. None are bad-tempered or look as if they could do harm, and for someone who lives in a country without bears (except in zoos) it is so hard to remember that we should keep our distance from these animals. They do not look anything like teddybears either so they have become pseudohumans. They are easy to empathise with, so easy to see their point of view, and so easy to fall in love with and want to hug. Look at their eyes!

Here are some of my favourite bears and bear stories and this is without including any of Barbara Firth's for Martin Waddell, Kady MacDonald Denton's for Bonny Becker or Karma Wilson's.