Read Grow Inspire Book Week Slogan 2023 (Part 5) INSPIRE

 INSPIRE     WHO?

Inspire the World: A Kid's Journey to Making a Difference by Sammie Vance and Talitha Shipman

Obviously not every child is going to be a Sammie Vance. Sammie felt inspired to talk to her school principal about her plan for a friendship bench at her school, but what started as 8-year-old Sammie Vance's mission to get a buddy bench for her school to fight loneliness grew to be so much more. Now Sammie is making a difference beyond her hometown. In her first-ever book, Sammie shares how she's inspiring others through recycling, community, giving, determination, bravery, helping, being herself, and celebrating. She wants to inspire the world one kid at a time. Her website will tell you more. But, the good thing about introducing your students to Sammie Vance is that it shows them that a child can make a difference.

There are plenty of books you could use to inspire children or where they can see what has inspired people to do things. Our school has made a concerted effort to encourage Voice and Agency in our students. This too can be initiated by reading. Schools read about worm farms and get one, read about native bees and get a hive for their playground, read about the perils of plastic and change their lunch eating habits!

Below are some books which I think make good starting points for inspiration:

Grow  by Cynthia Platt and Olivia Holden Looking at a drab abandoned city lot, a girl has an idea. As she begins pulling weeds, neighbours young and old, black, brown, and white come to help. The community joins together, creating a colorful garden for all to enjoy. It is possible for one child to make a difference? Or

The Secret Sky Garden by Linda Sarah and Fiona Lumbers where Funni loves the old, disused car park, and spends a lot of time there flying her kite and playing her recorder, but something is missing. Definitely. So Funni decides to create a garden in the neglected space and after weeks of careful nurture, her garden in the sky takes shape.

The Wild Garden  by Cynthia Cliff

This book takes a look at the community garden as well as the environment beyond the community garden. Its message is about not expanding the planned community garden because it will take away the needed wild plants that the wildlife needs. We need to stop taking away from nature and learn to live with nature.  When the town wants to expand the garden Jilly and her grandfather show the people what the expansion will do and inspire them to wonder more broadly about the nature around them. Imagine if everyone learned to live with the nature as it is and help the wildlife instead of taking their space and needed ecosystems?

You Are a Beautiful Beginning by Nina Laden and Kelsey Garrity-Riley

Three children come together to build a magnificent and cozy treehouse for all their forest friends. Along the way, they discover the truth behind the adage that 'it is not the destination, but the journey.' his meditative and magical picture book encourages readers old and young to discover their own endless potential. This meditative and magical picture book encourages readers to discover their own endless potential. 

Wild Ideas  by Elin Kelsey and Soyeon Kim

Wild Ideas looks deep into the forests, skies and oceans to explore how animals solve problems. Whether it's weaving a safe place to rest and reflect, blowing a fine net of bubbles to trap fish, or leaping boldly into a new situation, the animals featured teach us a lot about creative problem solving tools and strategies. It  invites readers to indulge their sense of wonder and curiosity by observing the natural world, engaging with big ideas and asking questions.

We Move the World  by Kari Lavelle and Nadi H. Ali. Meet some of the world’s most beloved movers, shakers, scientists, activists, dreamers, and doers from the past and present who model what every childhood first can lead to! Neil Armstrong, Misty Copeland, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and more were once kids they grew up to lead us to the moon, dance in the ballet, and break barriers. From first steps to solving puzzles and learning the alphabet, all the small things are only the beginning: they can lead to future activism and innovation that just might change the world!  Or

Children Who Changed the World  by Marcia Williams which tells the incredible true stories of child activists such as Baruani Ndume, the teenager who gave a voice to fellow refugee children in Tanzania.

In Our Hands by Lucy Farfort

When the world is plagued with isolation and cursed to live without colour, it is up to a group of determined children to grow a seed of hope that will inspire everyone to come together and build a better future. 

I Am One: A Book of Action by Susan Verde and Peter H. Reynolds

On the first page, the main character asks a beautiful bird, "How do I make a difference?" They doubt their ability to make a difference because they are "so small." However, when the bird gives them a seed, they realize that "beautiful things start with just One." They can plant a seed and start a garden They can also start a journey, paint a masterpiece, compose a melody, and break down walls. All these actions start with "one" thing: a first step, a first stroke of paint, a first musical note, and a first brick. 

Now, I hear you saying it's for Book Week and none of these books are Australian, so here's a favourite of mine (I have a framed print of the cover illustration courtesy of my friend at Momotimetoread who knows how besotted I am about plants and trees).

Florette by Anna Walker 

Mae’s family moves to a new home in the city.  Mae wishes she could bring the garden with her. She’ll miss the apple trees, the daffodils and the butterflies in the long, wavy grass, but there’s no room for a garden in the middle of the city ...Or is there? What she finds there sparks something special and beautiful that will make her feel much more at home.

If you are lucky enough to have a copy of Bob Graham's new book The Concrete Garden by the time Book Week comes around you could read it as it promises to be a timely, inspiring and uplifting story about hope and the power of creative expression.

When the children leave their homes,  Amanda is the last one out of the tower block. She brings some chalk with her. On every inch of the concrete outside, the children draw pictures of everything they could think of, from flowers and snails, to spaceships and queens. Before long, a beautiful and exotic garden is spread out across the concrete. You could compare this to The Chalk Garden by Sally Anne Garland where Emma uses her imagination to draw a beautiful flower garden with sidewalk chalk.  A tiny ecosystem develops outside her door, with real-life flowers that bud and bloom!

And lastly, I have just purchased Mother Earth: Poems to Celebrate the Wonder of Nature by Libby Hathorn and Christina Booth. The poems are good and you will enjoy reading them but the front endpapers are the piece de resistance. Here Christina Booth has painted a sublime illustration of nodes and tendrils pushing up through the dirt towards the sky surrounding a haiku, called Earth. There are teaching notes for this book here.

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.

8th August Jan Pienkowski (1936) Marcia Williams

Marcia Williams' website says to call her Dotty and that is how you feel about her after having perused it! It is like her books, done as a busy comic strip. Her comic strip books usually retell well-known tales from the past, such as Noah's Ark; Shakespeare's Plays; Robin Hood.

Similarly, Jan Pienkowski's website is a wonderful introduction to him and his artwork. His 'trademarks' are pop-up books and the beautiful black silhouette pictures that he has done for books such as The Kingdom Under the Sea; The First Christmas and Easter. He was probably the first to do pop-up children's books and his Haunted House won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1980. Since then pop-up books have become much more common and cheaper.

In my library though, Polish-born, English illustrator, Pienkowski is synonymous with the Meg and Mog series of books by Helen Nicoll. Every three year old visitor runs straight to the Meg and Mog or Lucy Cousins' Maisy box and then spends ages deciding which books to take home ... they really want to take all of their friends home...even if they have their own copies at home.