21st October Apple Day

Yesterday was Apple Day which is celebrated in Australia and it was the day of the Granny Smith Festival here in Sydney. This festival is held on the third Saturday of October to commemorate 19th-century pioneer Maria Ann "Granny" Smith, credited with producing the Granny Smith apple.  So last week we had 'apple' picture books, including stories, information books and even some apple craft books on display and I enjoyed reading and acting out Mr Brown's Magnificent Apple Tree with some preschool classes.

A new apple book that was added just recently is Enough Apples  by Kim Kane and Lucia Masciullo. It is a good book to add to your collection because it not only deals with apples, apple pies and cooking with apples.  It  also is one to add to your list of sustainability resources. Here is the booksellers blurb:

'When an orchardist's apple trees are crowded out by looming development, he learns how to transform his altered world so he can continue to bake the perfect apple pie. An inspiring story about urban greening and creative adaptation to change.'

  I have written about Apple Day before  so to see more of the books we displayed look here. And something to be happy about Apple Pigs  by Ruth Orbach is back in print and easy to buy once again.

23rd February Francesca Simon (1955) Walter Wick (1953) Sonya Hartnett (1968)

See last year's entry for Francesca Simon.

Walter Wick is the photographer responsible for those wonderful I Spy books. On his website in the Features section you can see how these books were made. It is amazing and awe-inspiring at the same time! He has done other books. I particularly like A Drop of Water and Optical Tricks.

Australian author Sonya Hartnett published her first book when she was only 15 years old. She usually writes for a young audience, but more recently she has ventured into picture books. In 2008 she was the first Australian to win The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award which is an award given to someone in Children's Literature whose work reflects the spirit of Astrid Lindgren. Her debut picture book, published in 2010 was The Boy and the Toy. It is the story of a boy whose father leaves him with a toy for company while he goes away. At first the boy and the get along famously but things change. Hartnett cleverly gets her message across without saying anything too explicitly, that what the toy is doing is quite wrong and what it means to be a good friend. The illustrations, also a first, by Lucia Masciullo an Italian born illustrator who now lives in Australia are detailed enough to show strong emotion in both the boy and the toy.