23rd January Pie Day

It's Pie Day  and your chance to eat pie. Meat pies are popular in Australia, but there are lots of others to celebrate too, savoury and sweet.  As a child I enjoyed blackberry picking. It meant my mother would make apple and blackberry pies and I loved them, smothered with custard. As it's a national day in the USA, the pies they think of are generally of the sweet variety, be it lemon meringue, pumpkin, pecan or apple.

The library has so many books where pies are celebrated so I thought I'd list some good ones.

Maybe you could share some of these titles and look at author's purpose using the PIE mnemonic.

13th December World Violin Day

Unfortunately there is no one at school to celebrate Violin Day. We are already on summer holidays, but at my school all of Year 2 take part in a 'strings program' where they learn to play the violin or cello. When they first begin, being in the room next door at school, is excruciating but by the time the end of year concert comes round I am amazed at how good they sound, so next year when the Year 2 students are allocated their new instrument I am going to do a display in the library of all these wonderful 'violin' books.
• Patrick by Quentin Blake. When Patrick plays his violin extraordinary things happen.
• Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss and Marjorie Priceman among other things this is a fun introduction to the orchestra
• A Violin for Elva by Mary Lyn Ray and Tricia Tusa. Elva wants a violin but her parents say no.
• The Pear Violin by Bingbo and Gumi. A clever squirrel turns half a pear into a violin and makes beautiful music in the forest.
• Hana Hashimoto: Sixth Violin by Chieri Uegaki and Qin Leng. Hana has had three violin lessons when she decides to enter a talent quest.
• The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson and Dusan Petricic tells the story of Joshua Bell, a famous classical violinist who gave a free concert in a subway in Washington.
• The Violin Man  by Colin Thompson is about Oscar who plays his violin outside a theatre but longs to play inside the theatre.
• The Anzac Violin by Jennifer Beck and Robyn Belton is the true story of New Zealand soldier, Alexander Aitken who took his violin everywhere he went.
• Ada's Violin by Susan Hood and Sally Were Comport tells the amazing story of a group of children who play musical instruments built from recycled rubbish in Paraguay.
• The Magic Violin by Victor Kelleher. Jimbo plays the violin just like Year 2 do at the beginning...terribly.
• Kizmet and the Case of the Smashed Violin  by Frank Woodley is a short chapter book that has Kizmet trying to find out who is smashed a priceless Stradivarius violin.

10th October Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day is held every year on the second Tuesday of October. This is not her birthday. That is on 10th December, too close to school holidays and Christmas to celebrate then. Today is a day to celebrate inspirational women in science, technology, maths and engineering, in the hope that by shining a light on such people and increasing their visibility, they can inspire future generations. 

There is so much written about Ada's personal life. She has been the subject of novels, plays and now a large number of picture book biographies.This means that a large number of young children get to know about her 'mathematical genius' and she has become quite a mentor for young girls who enjoy STEM subjects.If you are looking to add books to your library for children as young as eight, these are perfect.

• Ada's Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World's First Computer Programmer by Fiona Robinson

• Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Hallmark & April Chu 

• Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley & Jessie Hartland
and look out for these which will be here early in the new year

• Who Says Women Can't Be Computer Programmers  by Tanya Lee Stone & Marjorie Priceman

• Ada Lovelace by Isabel Sanchez Vegara &  Zafouko Yamamoto (part of the Little People Big Dreams series)

And there is a new series of bridging novels just available about an eight year old, third grade  student with a knack for maths, science and solving mysteries with technology.  Written by Emily Calandrelli, Ada Lace, On the Case is book 1 in the series.

5th June Hot Air Balloon Day

Did you know that the hot air balloon is the oldest form of flight technology used for carrying humans? The first manned flight occurred in 1783. The balloon itself consists of an envelope, which is used to contain the hot air, and a gondola, where passengers and a means of creating hot air are typically housed. 

Recently a popular television program started its new season with a harrowing scene which involved a hot air balloon. My husband and son think this show is very humorous, but often I find myself squirming. A book I really enjoyed, Enduring Love began with an awkward hot air balloon incident too. It was made into a movie and I had to cover my eyes at the beginning of it while the hot air balloon scene was playing. You guessed it, there is absolutely no way I would ever get in a hot air balloon. I do think they look good sailing across the sky. They are beautifully bright and demand your attention, but my attention is from the ground with my feet touching the dirt.

Today I collected up some books to put together a display. We had a Donut Day display out for the 2nd of June, but it had been decimated so I had to find something to replace it. Obviously donuts are popular. I could have had several copies of the Mr Panda books. I have a Mr Panda toy and together with the books he is popular. 

Hot air balloons has proved an ideal replacement ...there are plenty of books across a wide reading range. Some special books worth mentioning are:

Picture books:
• The Great Balloon Hullaballoo by Peter Bently
• Flight of the Dodo by Peter Brown
• Miranda the Explorer by James Mayhew
• The Cloudspotter by Tom McLaughlin
• Hot Air: the Mostly True Story of the First Hot-air Balloon Ride by Marjorie Priceman
• Hot Air by Sandrine Dumas Roy (about global warming really...wonderful art)
• Sebastian and the Balloon by Philip C. Stead

Nonfiction:
• Hot Air Balloons by Joanne Mattern
• How Do Hot Air Balloons Work?  by Buffy Silverman

Novels:
• Emily Eyefinger and the Balloon Bandits by Duncan Ball
• Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
• Meerkat Madness Flying High by Ian Whybrow

and two that are worth searching out in a library because they are out of print :
• Cinderella and the Hot Air Balloon by Ann Jungman
• The Balloon Farmer by Geoffrey Lehmann

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.

8th January Marjorie Priceman (1958)

Yesterday's book was new, today's is old. You will probably have it in your library though. Summer by June Factor and Alison Lester is a good book to revisit at the beginning of school because the children can then compare their summer activities to the activities of the children in the book. It has a simple text by Dr June Factor, the folklorist responsible for collecting all those wonderful playground rhymes that started with Far Out Brussell Sprout. The illustrations are very early Alison Lester, with strong colour and bold shape as she has done again in her new picture book, Noni the Pony.

P.S. It is American illustrator Marjorie Priceman's birthday. Read Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, a story about the orchestra, written in rhythmic verse and a fun way to introduce number and music to a child. See lesson plan for how it could be used here.