1st March Pig Day

In the USA today it is National Pig Day. Dick King Smith would be pleased, because as a pig farmer he thought all pigs were beautiful and wrote a book saying so. Even if you don't think they are beautiful  you do have to wonder why they are so endearing in so many children's books. Take the phenomena of Peppa Pig.  The three and four year olds just cannot get enough of her. The box that houses her books is always empty. Wibbly Pig  is another favourite with the preschoolers and we have a box full of them as well. Then the preschoolers start school and the boxes of Elephant and Piggie  become the new favourites.  By Year 2 , a new series about pigs becomes a favourite - Mercy Watson by Kate DiCamillo. See, pigs everywhere! Year 2 also love Wilbur  from Charlotte's Web  and Babe or The Sheep Pig, as Dick King Smith's book was called long before the movie popularised it.

Walking through Big W yesterday I saw a large print,  hardback Charlotte's Web with Garth William's illustrations coloured in. Such a bargain at $18.00.

Added to these books are other series such as Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Pig ..., Colin McNaughton's Preston Pig, Kristi Yamaguchi's ice-skating Poppy  and the numerous versions of The Three Little Pigs  and the myriad of spoofs or fractured versions of it. And how many children's books are called Pigs Can't Fly? Obviously we should be celebrating Pigs!

6th June Doughnut Day

In the United States the first Friday in June is National Doughnut Day and in England there was a whole week from 10th to 17th May designated as National Doughnut Week, yet here in Australia we haven't gone to those lengths to celebrate doughnuts. Children here certainly like them and eat them, but should we celebrate  a very sugary, deep-fried, doughy 'ring' ? I don't know. I did go looking in the library for doughnut books though, and found just as many with the 'donut' spelling. I wondered why there were two spellings and found an explanation here.

We only had five books that feature doughnuts/donuts:
• Daisy the Donut Fairy by Tim Bugbird. This is by far the most popular and you can see why when you look at the cover. The 'fairy/pink-loving' girls make sure it is always borrowed.
• If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff is part of the popular 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' series.
• The Donut Chef by Bob Staarke.
• The Doughnut Ring a short chapter book by Alexander McCall Smith
• Doughnut Danger by Anthony Masters, a reader from the I Am Reading series.
And a picture book where the word 'doughnut' is used as a name
• Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase  by Bruce Whatley.

After a bit of research I think that probably the ones I should have are:
• Arnie the Doughnut by Laurie Keller
• The Case of the Missing Donut  by Alison McGhee

Oh well, maybe by next year I will have enough titles to put together a display!

14th July Peggy Parish (1927 - 1988) Laura Numeroff (1953)

Peggy Parish is well known because of her Amelia Bedelia series of books. She had done 12 titles when she died suddenly. The publishers felt that the series could continue and Peggy's nephew Hermann decided to keep the series going. If you look at the Amelia Bedelia website you can see which are the twelve original titles and which are the newer ones.

Laura Numeroff is also well-known because of a series of books, her If You ... series. They were slow to come to Australia but now that they are here and have accompanying toys they are well-borrowed. The library has a large mouse toy to accompany If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and he makes the book even more appealing. As well as this series illustrated by Felicia Bond Laura has other books such as Beatrice Doesn't Want To and the popular new The Jellybeans and the Big Dance which are illustrated by Lynn Munsinger.