17th August Black Cat Appreciation Day

What is special about black cats? Quite a lot really. Our family has been a cat family. For eighteen years we had two very curious, very opinionated, very sociable Tonkinese cats and one of them was very dark, black in most lights. He was the runt of his litter and my daughter was convinced we should take him home. In contrast, his champagne coloured brother was the alpha male of the litter. He was in charge and he was the boss at home too. He ate first, he decided where they would sleep, what they would play, so when the 'boss' died first we feared for our black cat because we thought he would be at a loss. We should not have worried, he'd had a good teacher and he just became the 'boss' in every way. 

Black cats have a lot of lore and superstitions that surround them and they haven’t always been greeted with love and adoration. For our family a black cat was not a problem, but black cat symbolism varies from culture to culture and runs the gamut from symbolising a positive omen to being the harbinger of bad luck. 

Irish and Scottish people respected black cats as they believed that crossing paths with one would bring prosperity to your home.

In Japan and much of Asia, black cats symbolize good luck. Some Japanese folklore suggests that if a single woman crosses a black cat, she will find many potential suitors. 

In Greek Mythology, Hera, the Queen of the Gods, turned Galinthias, her servant, into a black cat in a fit of anger. Galinthias, in cat form, became an assistant to Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, the moon, and death.

In North America, the Puritans who settled in New England believed that witches possessed the ability to change into black cats.

How do black cats fare in children's books? 

They are often portrayed as the villain. See Scarface Claw and Slinky Malinki  in the Hairy Maclary series.

 A Dark, Dark Tale  by Ruth Brown

Is Sid  from Six Dinner Sid, by Inga Moore a villain? 

They are often part of stories about witches and Halloween. See

•  Moonlight the Halloween Cat  by Cynthia Rylant

• Trixie the Witch's Cat by Nick Butterworth

• Rumblewick,  the witch's cat from the series of books that started with My Unwilling Witch by Hiaywn Oram

• Mog from the  Meg and Mog  series by Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski. Mog does have some white stripes though.

Then there are the favourite series where they are not witch's cats, villains or heroes.

• Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton

• Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin and James Dean

The article I read did say that black cats were less likely to be adopted from cat shelters. There is 'black cat bias'. Research shows that this is because 

• People view black cats as less friendly and more aggressive

• People are still superstitious

• People believe they’re not able to read the emotions of black cats

Two books about adopted black cats are

• Holly  by Ruth Brown

• The Black Cat Who Only Wanted to be Loved by Rosa Silva

Still need convincing black cats reign supreme...read 

4th June Hug Your Cat Day

What fun! If you have a cat that likes to be hugged. There are two of us working in the library at school and we both have or have had cats. My Tonkinese loved being hugged. My co-worker's Ragdolls do not. So if you have a cat you'll know what they prefer. If you don't, your library needs Cat Chat  by Dr Jess French.

In April we had a display of Siamese Cat books and were surprised how popular they were and it got us thinking about how long it has been since we had a cat display. So today's a chance to have a bigger one. What have we got? Where to start? There are so many? Of course everyone has their favourites.

Mine are:

• My Cat Jack by Patricia Casey

• Ginger by Charlotte Voake

• Posy  by Linda Newbery and Catherine Rayner

• My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton and Lynley Dodd

• Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore

• The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat by Ronda and David Armitage

• Puss Jekyll and Cat Hyde by Joyce Dunbar and Jill BartonPip

• Cats Sleep Anywhere by Eleanor Farjeon and Ann Mortimer (just love this poem)

Interestingly, I think the best book for a young child who just wants to read for themselves, is The Cat Sat on the Mat by Brian Wildsmith because you can 'read' the pictures once you know what the first page says and when you see a three or four year old discover this it brings such a smile to your face because they are so excited and proud of themselves. Similarly I watched a Kindergarten child read a Flubby title in the library this week and he too was superexcited. My own daughter read the books about Morris by Vivian French as her first independent 'chapter books'. What is it with cat books?

 

The series about cats do get cult followings. There are students who love the picture book series Pete the Cat, Nicky, Mittens, Splat, Slinky Malinki, Old Tom, Cuddles  and Chester. And then once they are reading new series take over like Flubby, Killer Cat, Marshmallow Pie, Binky Space Cat, Squishy McFluff, Scratch Kitten, Magic Kitten, Atticus Claw, Toto the Ninja Cat all those cat and kitten tales by Jenny Dale, Holly Webb and Linda Newbery.

So we'll put out a large number of cat books and see how they go! This Pinterest page has the books that are in the library.

21st October Apple Day

Apple Day is an annual celebration, held in October, of apples and orchards. It is celebrated mainly in the United Kingdom where it is Autumn and harvest time. The first Apple Day was held in 1990. Given that the Granny Smith green apple originated in Australia in 1868 and apples are popular as snacks in Australian school lunchboxes we should celebrate it here too.

Apples and their place in our language and life could make for some interesting discussions with children, even a whole unit of study. Look at how many sayings there are. Just some that come to mind:
• an apple for the teacher
• an apple a day keeps the doctor away
• that apple didn't fall far from the tree
• rotten to the core
• you are the apple of my eye
• don't upset the apple cart
• don't let one rotten apple spoil the whole barrel.

Scrolling through my library catalogue there were more than thirty picture books which highlighted apples. Some were sheer celebrations of the apple such as Apple by Nikki McClure and Little Apple: A Book of Thanks by Brigitte Weninger; others such as The Apple Trees by Vivian French, One Red Apple by Harriet Ziefert, Apples Apples Apples  by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, From Seed to Apple  by Anita Ganeri and Apples Grow on a Tree by Mari Schuh explain the lifecycle of apples in an illustrated format suitable for young readers; some tell the benefits of and how to make apple pies (Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie; How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World) and yet others are just great stories for young children to enjoy and marvel at.

The most recent acquisition that sent me on this search for an Apple Day is The Apple Orchard Riddle  by Margaret McNamara and Brian Karas. I bought this because their earlier book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? had been such a success with the teachers and this story is also about teacher, Mr Tiffin and his class, and in it they go on a trip to an orchard and learn a lot about apples while trying to solve a riddle as well.

Other stories that I have shared with preschool or kindergarten classes to great effect are:
• Mr Brown's Magnificent Apple Tree  by Yvonne Winer and Maya Winters
• A New House for Mouse by Petr Horacek
• Red Panda's Toffee Apples by Ruth Paul
• The Very Helpful Hedgehog by Rosie Wellesley
• The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern
• The Apple Tree by Lynley Dodd
and two picture books with more 'meat' and things to talk about
• Hubert and the Apple Tree by Bruno Hachler and Albrecht Rissler
• One Green Apple by Eve Bunting and Ted Lewin. This story also features an excursion to an apple orchard, but the main character here is Farah, a Muslim immigrant who is new to the class.

14th September Eve Sutton (1906 - 1992) Diane Goode(1949) John Steptoe (1950 - 1989)

Eve Sutton is the New Zealand author of My Cat Likes To Hide in Boxes, the book that began Lynley Dodd's career in children's literature. She illustrated it for a cousin by marriage, Eve Sutton. The book was a huge success with very young children because of its repetitive rhyme and rhythm, its topic, cats who like to sleep everywhere, and its fun illustrations.

Diane Goode was born in Brooklyn into a French and Italian family. I first met her through her two books Where's Our Mama? and Mama's Perfect Present which were in my library when I inherited it. They appealed to the parents because they were written in English and French and as French is the foreign language taught at school it meant that they could practise their French too. With the first title they get the added bonus of it being a story where the children who have lost their mother are wandering around a 1920 Paris railway station describing their mother as the best mother ever. The more recent books in the library that are by Diane Goode are ones that she has not written, but illustrated, and they have a much less distinct French or historical feel. She illustrated books for Elise Primavera (Louise the Big Cheese) and Cynthia Rylant (Alligator Boy).

John Steptoe was also born in Brooklyn, one year after Diane Goode, but unfortunately his life was short, as he died when he was only 38. He began his first book (Stevie) when he was only sixteen. All of his published work (which included 15 picture books in 20 years) deals with the African American experience, issues and concerns. Very few authors and illustrators were African Americans at that time and he helped to change the stereotypical view of his people.He used his own family as models for the characters in his best known and Caldecott Honor book Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale. This beautiful book is a retelling of the Cinderella story set in ancient Africa among the ruins of Zimbabwe.

5th July John Schoenherr (1935 - 2010) Lynley Dodd (1941) Jill Murphy (1949)

American, John Schoenherr is the illustrator of Jane Yolen's Caldecott Medal winning book Owl Moon. These illustrations make children who have never experienced snow, especially at night, 'feel' the snow and experience the awe of it. In the same way his illustrations in Bear make the reader feel that they really know bears. He captures nature perfectly. I hadn't realised, but when reading up on Jean Craighead George I learned that Schoenherr was the illustrator for her Newbery Award winning novel, Julie of the Wolves, another book about the natural environment, so the perfect choice. I was sad to read that he died in April and that there will be no more beautifully illustrated John Schoenherr books. The good news though is that his son Ian Schoenherr is also a children's book illustrator.

New Zealander, Lynley Dodd needs no introduction. Her career started with Eve Sutton's My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes and continued with the run-away success of Hairy Maclary From Donaldson's Dairy. There isn't a three year old anywhere who doesn't love this little black dog and his canine and feline mates. In the library we had the 20th anniversary edition of Hairy Maclary that woofed. I was ever so pleased when the battery ran out. It was so popular! The children loved to borrow it together with the Hairy Maclary toy.

And lastly, British author /illustrator Jill Murphy, who also needs no introduction because of the success of her series of books about the family of elephants, the Larges, and her series of novels about Mildred who is attending the Cackle Academy, a boarding school for witches, which begins with The Worst Witch. I have just finished an author study with Kindergarten where we looked closely at Jill Murphy's picture books. She captures family dynamics brilliantly and she always depicts mothers that you have to empathise with even if the children don't. And, isn't the perfect read-aloud book one that you enjoy as much as the children do! Every mother should read Five Minutes Peace and The Last Noo-noo.