13th May Frog Jumping Day

Frog Jumping Day is a good day to celebrate frogs and their amazing ability.

'Frogs have great jumping capabilities and are the best jumpers among all vertebrates given their size.'

Collect all the frog books you can find, both stories and expository texts and set aside time to read and learn, read and laugh and read and share. The most borrowed frog book in the library is Juliette MacIver's The Frog Who Lost His Underwear. There are so many favourite 'frog' series in my library.
There's
* Frog by Max Velthuijs. There is a dozen or so books in this series and they have recently been reissued in a larger format with covers that no longer have a bordered illustration.

* A Boy, a Dog and a Frog by Mercer Mayer. These little books are textless and small hands love them and tell the stories to each other without any trouble. There are six of them.

* Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel. This series has been around for a long time, but so many generations of children have learned to read using these beginning chapter books. They are always in print.

* Lester and Clyde by James Reese. These three books are very old now, out of print and hard to find, but I know teachers who share these stories with their class and then the children are keen to borrow them.

While these aren't a series, there are several versions of the dreamtime story of Tiddalick , a frog who caused a flood in my library, complete with puppets so that the children can make a play. It would be good also to introduce the fairytale  The Frog Prince  because it is one of the Grimm stories that not as many children know. Read a traditional version with fairytale language, not a 'reader' and then compare it with a spoof like Jackie Urbanovic's Prince of a Frog. Have fun revisiting lots of old favourites and jumping around like a frog. Below is a collection of stories about frogs. There are a large number of nonfiction books too listed here.

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14th March Beds, Sheep and Sleep.

I had been meaning to write more about beds and sleep because I have found it fascinating what is being borrowed from the library display. I thought of three topics and each is really a blog on its own, but this week I ran out of time to write each night. So here is an amalgamation.

Topic 1 Magic Beds
Probably the most famous book for this category is Bed Knob and Broomsticks by Mary Norton. Every child who had had this story read to them yearns for a bed like this. Another short novel that my children love is Ten in a Bed by Allan Ahlberg. Here a girl named Dinah Price is visited by a number of fairytale characters while she is in bed. But there are picture books too where the bed is capable of magic journeys and occurrences. Try:
• The Magic Bed by John Burningham
• Big Bouncy Bed by Julia Jarman and Adrian Reynolds
• Luke and his Amazing Space Bed by Luke Sheridan and Jen McCartney
• Outer Space Bedtime Race by Robert Sanders and Brian Won

Topic 2 Counting Sheep
How can there be so many stories about counting sheep when trying to sleep? My favourite is The 108th Sheep by Ayano Imai, but there are lots of others:
• One More Sheep by Mij Kelly and Russell Ayto
• When Sheep Cannot Sleep by Satoshi Kitamura
• The Sleep  Sheep  by Anna McQinn and Hannah Shaw
• Counting Sheep  by Kathryn Cave and Chris Riddell

Topic 3  What's Under the Bed?
Starting with books that have that as the title:
• What's Under the Bed? by Joe Fenton
• What's Under the Bed by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom
• There's an Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer
• Under the Bed by Paul Bright and Ben Cort
• The Crocodile Under the Bed by Judith Kerr
• Emus Under the Bed by Leann J. Edwards

30th December Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) Mercer Mayer (1943)

Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, novelist and creator of enduring children's books, Jungle Book; Rikki Tikki Tavi and The Just So Stories. He was born in India, went back to England at 5, was educated there and then in 1882 he went back to India as a journalist. While older children will still read Jungle Book in an edition such as Nicola Bayley's, Kipling has been beyond the reach of very young children. But now, because of the amount of time his stories have been around, and because he died so long ago, many of his stories have been retold for younger audiences and with modern illustrations. English author, Shoo Rayner has written the Just So Stories as beginning chapter books, perfect for young readers. They are one of the most popular reading series with my Year 1 students. The boys like to read the whole set and then will move onto other Shoo Rayner books, such as Viking Vik, Little Horrors, Ricky Rocket and Scaredy Cats. Illustrators such as Jerry Pinkney have also taken Kipling's stories and made them 'dance'. And of course if you don't read anything else it is time to dig out Kipling's poem, If and be reminded what sound advice it is.

Mercer Mayer is an American author illustrator, very well known for his series of books about Little Critter, but long before these there were other books worth searching for. His first book, A Boy, a Dog and a Frog is a wordless book with so much to offer, plot-wise, characterisation-wise and pictorially. He did others such as this and then his There's a Nightmare in my Cupboard and There's an Alligator Under My Bed.