16th May Drawing Day

Today is Drawing Day ! Drop everything and draw. You know you would like to.
Pull out these books and get inspired. Bob Raczka's new book Niko Draws a Feeling will empower you to be able to draw anything even your feelings!

11th February Holly Keller (1942) National Inventors Day

Of course it is Jane Yolen and Mo Willems birthday, but I wrote about them last year and they are very well known. Today I want to focus on Holly Keller. She is an American author and a prolific illustrator, having illustrated so many books for other authors, especially science titles. When she also does the writing she tends to choose to have animal protagonists who deal with family issues such as sibling rivalry, adoption, fitting in and coping with a change like the death of a pet. There's a series of stories about each of these, Geraldine, a piglet, Henry, a possum, and Horace, a leopard who is adopted by tigers. But, my favourite of her books is Grandfather's Dream, a story set in the ricefields of a river delta in Vietnam. Nam's grandfather has told her stories about the cranes who frequented the area before the war and they would like them to return. This beautiful story has many layers of meaning and an important message which is accessible to a large age range. The book could be used with children from four to twelve, whereas many of Holly's other books are for a much younger audience.

National Inventors Day commemorates the birth of Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931). While there are many information books which feature him such as Marcia Williams's Three Cheers for Inventors! I thought it would be fun to read a book to younger children that features an inventor. Louise Yates has a new book Frank and Teddy Make Friends in which Frank, a mouse is always inventing things including a new friend, Teddy.

1st February 2011

Well I have done it, written every day for a year! I find it hard to believe. I did think I would stop now, but there are still a lot of books, illustrators and authors I could write about, so perhaps I will keep going, but not feel that I have to write every day. I think it is time to set up a library blog now that the teachers and parents at school can access. Maybe then the library newsletter that I do each term won't be needed. Having written over fifty of them, maybe I will suffer withdrawal from them as well.

Today I had the kindergarten classes for the first time. I love how keen they are to borrow a book for themselves. I love watching how they choose a book. I smile when I hear all the comments about paying and then I realise that outside of school my clientele are more likely to go to a bookshop or a video shop than a library, and because of this it is often hard to find books that they haven't seen before. For this reason I usually focus on 'oldies but goodies' with kindergarten when they first come to the library. I want them to see books they may not know. Today I didn't do that though. I shared books about loving books and wanting to share that love with others. We read Keith Faulkner and Jonathan Lambert's The Monster Who Loved Books. The class always gasp when the large popout characters seem to leap out from the pages. They love the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. They like it when we spot other fairytale characters and when we identify the nursery rhyme characters and have an excuse to say the rhymes. Then we read Dog Loves Books by Louise Yates. Louise hasn't illustrated a large number of books, but each of them is a gem and she is therefore an illustrator to watch. I don't know when her birthday is, but I am guessing she is young. Dog is a very gentle book lover who opens a book shop and waits for customers to come and buy his books. While he is waiting he does what we all do while we wait, he reads and escapes into his books. At the end of these two books everyone is chomping at the bit to borrow. So begins another year in the library and a new cohort of book enthusiasts!

For today's birthdays you will need to go back to 1st February 2010, the beginning of this blog.