15th January New School Year List 1: Rule Setting

I'm finding it hard to comprehend that I am going back to school next week. Where did the break go? Between lock down for me or friends and family I feel like I have seen no one and done nothing much except read and watch television. Oh woe is me.

I have been putting together lists of picture books for my classroom teachers to use as they begin a new year with a new class. I get lots of requests for books at the beginning of the year on friends; rule setting;  goals; separation, etc and usually the requests are on the run and I miss things that I later wish I'd supplied them with. So this year a list of suggestions for some situations. 

Today I thought I would do 'rule setting'. Child development suggests routines and rules are beneficial for children. Rules help children feel safe. Rules say, “Someone cares about me.” Rules mean, “I know what to expect.”  Here’s a dozen books to help start a discussion with your class. Of course this is not a definitive list but these books are in our school library and suitable for students 5 to 8 years old.

1. You Must Bring a Hat by Simon Philip & Kate Hindley

2. Rules of the House by Mac Barnett & Matt Myers

 

3. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems

 

4. A Visitor For Bear by Bonny Becker & Kady MacDonald Denton

5. Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman

 

6. Rufus Goes to School by Kim T. Griswell & Valeri Gorbachev

 

7. Maurice the Unbeastly by Amy Dixon & Karl James Mountford

8. The Station Mouse by Meg McLaren

9. Noodlephant by Jacob Kramer & K-Fai Steele

 

10. David Goes to School by David Shannon

11. Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller

 

 

12. What If Everybody Did That? By Ellen Javernick & Colleen Madden

21st March Common Courtesy Day

How appropriate at this troubled time in the community. Common courtesy has almost disappeared at the shops when it comes to people wanting something for themselves. How sad. I think we need it more than ever at the moment, so now that we've moved on in the library from hand washing and germs, I'm moving on to Common Courtesy!

What does common courtesy mean?
It is politeness that people can usually be expected to show!


Common Courtesy Day is a great way to remind ourselves that the world is better off when we show gratitude and graciousness in both big and small ways.

So what books to put in this display? I could put any books about manners, but some are definitely better than others because some are far too didactic. Below are some that warrant reading and sharing. The reader will laugh at the despicable behaviour but once recognised they will know it is inappropriate.

Magic Little Words by Angele Delaunois and Manon Gauthier is the gem to get you started. It presents one word and its meaning on each double-page spread and because there is not  much text it allows for lots of talk.

Hello, Goodbye  by David Lloyd and Louise Voce is very simple and for very young children, but greeting each other  is an important concept.

The Elephant and the Bad Baby  by Elfrida Vipont and Raymond Briggs is a classic that many children will know but will be happy to tell you what the baby and the elephant did wrong.

Please Mr Panda by Steve Antony has a storyline similar to Elfrida Vipont's but has other concepts to explore besides manners.

"Say Please, Little Bear" by Peter Bently and Rob McPhillips. Daddy bear is the kind of parent you hope every child has. He enjoys having fun with his child, but expects exemplary behaviour.

The Magic Word  by Mac Barnett and Elise Parsley. Here humour takes over, but the underlying message isn't lost.


One Word from Sophia  by Jim Averback and Yasmeen Ismail. Sophia tries all sorts of negotiations, but in the end only needs one word.

My Little Gifts  by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey.

Norris the Bear Who Shared by Catherine Rayner.

Betty Bunny Wants Everything by Michael Kaplan and Stephane Jorisch

Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins

Yuk! said the Yak by Alex English and Emma Level

Tea Party Rules by Ame Dyckman and K.G. Campbell

We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins

No Slurping, No Burping! by Kara LaReau and Lorelay Bove

You're a Rude Pig, Bertie by Claudia Bolt

All Mine! by Zehra Hicks

How Do You Do, Mr Gnu? by Billy Coughlan and Maddie Frost

Me First! by Michael Escoffier and Kris di Giacomo

Give Me Back My Book! by Travis Foster and Ethan Long

Plankton is Pushy by Jonathan Fenske

5th February Pondering Holes

I've just finished Week 2 of term1 at school and it has been both busy and interesting. In the library we catalogued a new book, Holes by Jonathan Litton. Here's the blurb

Delve into this fascinating book of holes to discover a world of 
burrows and boreholes, subways and sinkholes. From the 
mythical and mysterious to household and human holes,  
find out what makes a hole a hole and how they shape our world. 

It is quite a thick tome for our age group, but it is full of fascinating information, including a section about the philosophy of holes. This led to quite a lot of conversation and  laughter among the library staff and of course it led us off on to all sorts of tangents. Is there a day to celebrate 'holes'? Well, no not really. There is a 'My Bucket's Got a Hole Day' on 30th May, but not one that covers all sorts of holes. Maybe because the phrase 'whole day' is a common one.

There is an amazing number of picture books that feature the word 'hole' in their title though. Of course that started us off on a display. See here for the books the library has. You'll notice these books don't all have the word in the title because we then started thinking about what 'hole' means...'an opening through something' and other words for 'hole'...gap; aperture; cavity; dent; void; pit; cranny; burrow; crater; and even tunnel.

Some picture books for young children are about physical holes, things to  dig, carrying on from Ruth Krauss' classic A Hole is to Dig. Julia Donaldson's One Mole Digging a Hole and Mac Barnett's  Sam and Dave Dig a Hole do this, but books such as Kelly Canby's The Hole Story and Paul Bright's The Hole Story start to play with the meaning of the word 'hole'. Then books such as the very special The Hole  by Oyvind Torseter really start to get at the philosophy of holes.

I grew up besotted with stories about smuggling and caves, probably because of Enid Blyton and stories such as The Secret of Spiggy Holes. My own children grew up being readers who kept revisiting  Louis Sachar's novel, Holes, so obviously holes and their many incantations provide copious ideas for stories. And of course any display has to include books such as Alice in Wonderland which has a hole as a pivotal part of the plot.

Collect a whole lot of hole stories and go make a hole in your reading time!

1st October National Ghost Hunting Day

I have just come home from school where I was doing the library displays for the beginning of next term. Halloween is quite popular with the children I teach, possibly because of the large number of expat families at school. I like the chance to get all the books out that feature ghosts, witches, wizards, monsters and 'creepy dark'. These books tend to only go out of the library at this time of year when they are 'facing'  children and being talked about. I also take the opportunity to do a pumpkin display and this year bats. In that way there is a good balance of fiction and nonfiction out and there's plenty to explore.

So when I noticed that in the USA the first day of October is Ghost Hunting Day I thought it very fitting that October starts and finishes with ghosts. There's so many good books to read with ghosts as characters. In the the picture books these are popular:
• Ghost in the House by Ammi-Joan Paquette
• Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
• Leo a Ghost Story by Mac Barnett
• Little Ghost by Vivian French
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Susan Pearson
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan
• Ghost  by Luk Depondt and Guido van Genechten
• Ready Steady Ghost! by Elizabeth Baguley
• Zen Ghosts by Jon M. Muth


As the school year gets closer to the end, I also have a larger number of fluent readers looking to immerse themselves in a good chapter book or series of books, so I have also put these 'ghost' stories out on display.



• The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler    (eight books)
• Ghost Hunters and the Incredibly Gruesome Ghost by Cornelia Funke (four books)
• The Toilet Ghost by Pamela Butchart ( one of the three stories from Wigglesbottom Primary)
• Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt (one of six books)
• Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog by Claire Barker (one of three books)
•  Ghosts on the Loose  by Tim Healey  (one of the Mortimer Keene series of five books) )
•  The Ghost Library by David Melling
• The Ghost Teacher by Tony Bradman
• The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler
• The Case of the Graveyard Ghost and other Mysteries by Duncan Ball
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier


Here's quite a list to get you started on the ghost hunt!





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14th June Skunk Day

There are no skunks, sloths, meerkats or lemurs in Australia, but toys and picture books have certainly made them popular animals with the children that frequent the library. We have just purchased Mac Barnett and Patrick McDonnell''s new book The Skunk to add to the books that can go home with the skunk toy and it went home the first day it was on display, Skunk Day!

27th February Birds

Hard to believe we've been back at school already for over a month. The time has flown. There seems to be so much to do at the beginning of a school year. Over the last six months or so I seem to have bought so many picture books that feature birds and so many of them have simply outstanding illustrations. It got me thinking about how many books we already had in the library about birds so we decided to turn the library into an aviary to start the year's displays. It has been amazing. The teachers at school think it odd because they know I don't like birds, that is real birds. I'm quite scared of them since I had a magpie in the library and he couldn't get out. However I really like pictures of birds. They make for great illustrations, greeting cards, posters, sculptures etc so it was easy to decorate the library. I used some old books as my initial focus to sort out the wording to accompany the display -

• Have You Seen Birds?  by Joanne Oppenheim and Barbara Reid. Like all of Reid's books this uses wonderful plasticine collage for the illustrations but my children do not engage with the text.
• Birds, Birds and More Birds by Matt Cosgrove
• Birds  by Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek. My preschool teachers love this book.
• Birdsongs by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins. Perfect for having fun with the noises birds make.

I put out all the old favourites such as Edward the Emu; Edwina the Emu; Olga the Brolga; Enoch the Emu; Samantha Seagull's Sandal; Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus; Leonardo Pigeon of Siena; Pidge; Jeremy; Waddle Giggle Gargle; How the Birds Got their Colours; The Birdwatchers; Vuture's View; Condor's Egg; Owl Moon; Owl Babies; The Owl Who was afraid of the dark; Feathers for Phoebe; The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay; Puffling; Little Owl Lost; Mozzie and Midgie and King of the Birds.

The library also has two beautiful biographies about two prominent bird lovers which we featured:
• The Boy Who Drew Birds  by Jacqueline Davies and Melissa Sweet. This is the story of John James Audubon
• For the Birds by Peggy Thomas and Laura Jacques. This is the the story of Roger Tory Peterson

And then all the new ones. I have put All I Said Was by Michael Morpurgo first because it is a great book to start a discussion about birds and their characteristics because in this story a boy wishes he was a bird, becomes a pigeon and then experiences the consequences of the change.

29th November Jon Klassen (1981)

Jon Klassen is the Canadian writer and illustrator of children's books who won both the American Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration, for his 2012 picture book This is Not My Hat.  He is the first person to win both awards for the same work. This is a wonderful book, but he has been involved in the publication of many other fabulous books such as I Want My Hat Back and the very recent one Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, which he did with American author Mac Barnett.  Like Klassen, Barnett is young. He was born on 23rd August 1982.

Recently the two of them appeared on a television show where they talked about their new book, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and they looked like they were enjoying themselves so much that it is easy to see why together their books work so well with young audiences. A hole seems like an unlikely subject for a very successful book, but add the diamond and the visual humour that goes with them missing it and it turns into a book that the children 'just get'. The trailer is very funny too! I'm sure there will be much more yet to come from this duo both separately and together.

29th June Beanie Festival

Alice Springs has just held their annual Beanie Festival and it never ceases to amaze me what some people can make from wool. There are beanies that take book characters has their starting point. There are yet others that tell a whole story. A beanie depicting The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a winner. There was another depicting The Rainbow Serpent. One lady even managed to fit the whole of Ned Kelly's Gang on a beanie.

One of the book displays last term was of all the books in the library about knitting and yarn. The newest inclusion was Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. This story celebrates a young girl, Annabelle's ingenuity as she goes about changing her monochromatic world by knitting for everyone. This book has also just won The Boston Globe-Horn Award for excellence in children's literature, but it was very hard to move off the shelf in my library. Compared to the colourful covers of other books it just did not appeal to my young audience. I will need to do more to sell it.

While on the subject of wool though, I need to tell you that two six year old boys in my Book Club were having a quiet chuckle and discussion about a page in Nadia Shireen's Good Little Wolf where the little wolf has wrapped the big wolf in wool.

I can't find it to show you so you'll have to find the book. It is funny and highly improbable and thus appealing. The book also has a good ending, one that not many authors would risk in this day and age for this age group!