16th March National Hiccup Day

Yesterday I collected together all the books in the library catalogue that had 'hiccups' in the title. I couldn't believe there were 17 books! I have put a picture of 16 of them below. We also had Nette Hilton's short novel The Hiccups. Often around Halloween I share Lee Weatherly's The Scariest Monster in the World. In this story the monster gets a bad case of hiccups and the other creatures try all the cures! The children love this story especially how he finally does get rid of the hiccups. If you have this story it is the perfect story for Hiccups Day! What causes hiccups anyway? I'll look tomorrow in one of the nonfiction books in the display.

6th January Bean Day (Part 2)

Why is Bean such a common name in the world of children's books? It's not like it is this common in real life!

All of the books pictured above are part of a series of books except Bella and Bean by Rebecca Kai Dotlich.  This is a sweet picture book which certainly appeals to my pink-loving girls. It tells the story of two mice or rats, Bella, a moody poet and Bean, who is energetic and interrupts Bella's quiet constantly wanting her to join in some fun rather than composing. These two mismatched friends do influence each other though and by the end of the book they are writing a poem together. Lots of good vocabulary and lots to talk about especially in regards to friendship.

In the picture book series Zoe and Beans by father and daughter team Chloe and Mick Inkpen, Beans is a dog. Zoe and Beans do things that all preschoolers do but they also find themselves in adventures with pirates and on the moon which adds an element of creative play.

Beandog and Nugget by Cherise Mericle Harper is a series of easy graphic novels about two friends.
In The Ball, the first book in this series, Bean Dog and Nugget lose Bean Dog's shiny new ball in a bush. They dream up elaborate and silly ways to get it back while they argue about who is actually going to go and get it. Enter Superdog and Ninja Nugget for a hilarious ending that kids will love and relate to. Then in The Cookie the two think up ways to share the cookie. I am always looking for cartoon-style easy to read books for the library and these are perfect.


Ivy and Bean don't need an introduction. These two girls and their series of books are among the most borrowed early reader series in my library. Here Bean, short for Bernice is the tomboy, green- loving, anti-dress wearing half of the dynamic duo. Her friend Ivy is the more intellectual, quiet, pink-loving is the other half. In each of the ten books about them they cause much mischief and humour that 6 to 9 year old girls seem to really enjoy.



Beany  is a character who is brought to life in a series of books written by Susan Wojciechowski. Book one of five, Beany (Not Beanhead) introduces Bernice Lorraine Sherwin-Hendricks, aka Beany, a girl with twenty-three freckles, a bossy best friend, and a tendency to worry over just about everything! Bean is based on Susan's daughter Mary and in each of the books Beany tackles school anxieties 'with grit and fortitude'.  A good step up from Ivy and Bean!
Now for the three protagonists who have Bean as a surname!
Harriet Bean is a series of three books by Alexander McCall Smith. Harriet Bean, the heroine of each loves nothing more than a good mystery so together with her five extraordinary aunts (Veronica, Harmonica, Majolica, and twins Japonica and Thessalonika), she is always ready to take on a new case.
The Clarice Bean  series is a mixture of picture books and novels. The picture books are popular in my library but the chapter books are beyond the majority of my eight year olds. Lauren Child's wit is sophisticated, but like the other heroines listed above Clarice also has childhood worries, has to deal with unwanted changes, family and sibling issues and finding friendships.


Willa Bean is a lovable curly-haired cupid. She is very different from other cupids with her 'milli-bajillion' freckles, crazy mess of hair and purple wings. She attends the Cupid Academy and lives on Nimbus. There are five books in the Little Wings series about Willa Bean and they are easier to read than Jill Murphy's Worst Witch series and deal with similar school and friend problems.

1st & 2nd February Tomato Festival

This morning I was reading the newspaper and was surprised to read that Sydney is hosting a Tomato Festival at the Botanical Gardens on the 1st and 2nd February. This got me thinking about tomatoes, a fruit that I feel is somewhat overrated in its raw state. Friends say that is because I never have really good ones straight from the garden. Recently though I did. A friend served up a salad that was just tomatoes of various colours straight from her garden with olive oil and a little basil and they were good, very good!

Next I thought about how there were tomatoes growing in the school vegetable garden and how I have never thought much about them as a display impetus in the library. What did we have about tomatoes?  I thought of the 'signature' book I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato, the very first Charlie and Lola book by Lauren Child and then had to look in the catalogue. There was not much as I discovered. Here is the sum total!

Oh No, Monster Tomato!  a picture book about a tomato-growing competition by Jim Helmore and Beware! Killer Tomatoes, a short chapter book from Jeremy Strong's Laugh Your Socks Off series continue the fun tomatoes conjure up in fiction and then there are a few non fiction books that look at how to grow tomatoes and their lifecycles. Compared to apples, pumpkins, carrots and potatoes, tomatoes are certainly under-represented in children's books!

9th August International Art Appreciation Day

Today is International Art Appreciation Day. When I was a child I knew nothing about art until high school. I didn't go to an art gallery till then either and there wasn't the abundance of beautifully illustrated picture books for children that there is today. I started my art education very late.

Luckily the children I teach have it very differently. They start their art education very young. In fact research shows that preschoolers are the ready foundation for art appreciation and that it should start then. Courses such as  Art Appreciation 101 for Young Children are flourishing and they teach that learning about art helps children improve their ability to observe things around them.  Using paintings, sculptures and pieces of architecture as prompts for thinking routines such as See Think Wonder help children to express creative ideas, communicate and develop language skills, use problem solving and reasoning skills.

If you don't use the Harvard Thinking routines it is as simple as asking children What do you see? What do you think of when you see this piece of art? How does it make you feel? What part of the story is this painting? Do you like it?

There are a myriad of ways to celebrate art that involves appreciation of it.
1. Visit a gallery or exhibition. I made a point of visiting my local gallery today. Last week I went to an exhibition put on by local printmakers.

2. Share picture books, especially those that feature the works of artists eg. Willy's Pictures by Anthony Browne,  Dan's Angel by Alexander Sturgis and Lauren Child or any of the Anholt's artists series by Laurence Anholt.

3. Look at books designed specifically for children which have large reproductions of famous paintings like those by Lucy Micklethwait. Her I Spy series also makes the art appreciation fun. Gillian Wolfe has a series that all have Look! in the title and similarly Gladys Blizzard has  a series Come Look With Me.

4. Look at books that go with a gallery and do things to draw you into a close study of their paintings. The Queensland Art Gallery does this in 21st Century Art for Kids.  Roy and Matilda: the Gallery Mice books by Susan Venn do this for the NSW Art Gallery, the Victorian Gallery and the Queensland Gallery. The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra has books it has published for themselves that introduce very young children to art that is in their gallery. Further afield the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York  is an expert at this.

5. If you have never experienced a book published by Prestel for children you must. You will not be disappointed.