October International School Library Month

International School Library Month (ISLM) is an opportunity for those in charge of school libraries around the world to choose a day, week, or the entire month in October to celebrate the importance of school libraries and to celebrate everything great about them.

Here in Australia, ALIA is proud to celebrate International School Library Day. This day celebrates school libraries and their staff and the work that they undertake to support students. This year we are celebrating on 19 October with the theme 'Growing Global Citizens'.

Given that the students at my school have not had access to their library while we have been in lockdown due to COVID, when they are all back at school on Monday 18th October, many of them will be super keen to borrow books. During Zoom sessions there has been a constant lament...I need something new to read.

Yes, my students did have access to online reading resources, plenty of them, 'but it's not the same' they kept saying. Also every time I thought of something I wanted to use or recommend I couldn't just leap up, find it and give it to them. The libraries at the school I work at are very well-resourced and the students have plenty of choice, but they did take it for granted and so did their parents. Students under 8 years old need books! It is very important when learning to read to be able to touch the words, turn the pages, examine the illustrations closely and just 'soak' in the book.

I have been putting together a poster for the pinboard just inside the door , something to this effect. Once before I collected all the library toys together and sat them on the mat reading, took a photo and told the students that this is what happens in the library when you're not here. For some of my avid Year 1 and Year 2 readers I will put a post-it heart and their name on the book with a suggestion from the book saying that they might like to read it.

Another interesting outcome from Covid is the number of parents who emailed me saying I want  to order some books for my child, what would you recommend? Parents borrow a large number of books from the school library to supplement their child's reading or as bedtime reads for their children, so as soon as the library is staffed again we will be putting together book bags for parents. We do this in two ways. They either email us with requests or we supply a 'lucky dip' bag of ten books where we include a selection of picture books, together with a chapter book, a nonfiction information book, a biography, a graphic novel, a textless book, an indigenous title and a poetry book. In this way they get to sample things that they might not otherwise choose to borrow.

To match the theme of 'Growing Global Citizens' we will make sure that the choice is very international. We have a large collection of books that are translations from other languages. We can provide books by authors and illustrators who do not live in Australia and who do not write about Australia. We could highlight some picture books that show children using libraries that are nothing like theirs. They would need to make a bigger effort to access these:

 My Librarian is a Camel by Margaret Ruirs The Book Boat's In by Cynthia Cotten & Frane Lessac That Book Woman by Heather Henson & David Small Biblioburro  by Jeannette Winter

 Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown & John Parra Planting Stories  by Anika Aldamuy Denise & Paola Escobar

 Inside Books  by Terri Buzzeo & Jude Daly

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

     The Library Bus  by Bahram Rahman & Gabrielle Grimard

And for fun

  

Leilong the Library Bus by Julia Liu & Bei Lynn

Now back to thinking about my school library, what can we do to make it more flexible, innovative and contemporary?

3rd February Bubblegum Day

The first Friday in February is Bubblegum Day. It began in 2006 when children's author Ruth Spiro decided that there needed to be a day to celebrate education, philanthropy and bubblegum! She has written a book called Lester Fizz, Bubble-Gum Artist, but I have not seen it. If I was looking for a book about bubblegum in my library I would resurrect my favourite B is For Bubbles  by Pamela Shrapnel and Noela Young. It is long out of print, but I have kept my library's very tatty copy on my shelf of 'specials'. It is perfect for Year 1 children who have lost teeth and just cannot blow bubbles with gum.

If you haven't got this book then the much more recent  Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler  is lots of fun to share with children and Chavela and the Magic Bubble  allows for a much deeper discussion about diversity and ecology.

17th December Raul Colon (1952)

Recently I purchased this wonderful new wordless picture book called Draw! It was illustrated by Raul Colon. I wondered why I had never seen any other books by this illustrator. I looked on the library catalogue and found that we did in fact, already have five other books by him. I was surprised because to me Draw! stood out as being 'new', very refreshing and very different. Of course the other titles were beautifully illustrated and well worth a look, but this one is his alone and I think this book is outstanding.

Researching further I found out that today is his birthday and that I hadn't written about him on the blog before. Here you can learn more about him and his 'scratchy' art. Here is an interview with Raul where he explains the backstory for creating Draw! It could be used with a class. His biographies are wonderful, but his life sounds like it would make a good biography too!

24th October Monica Brown

Monica Brown writes fantastic picture book biographies of people with Latino heritage. I have four of them in my library and use them when we do a biography unit with Year 2 students. They give white Anglo children an insight into people from cultures they may know little about and they expose them to the Spanish language as well.

I often wondered why someone with a surname like "Brown" seemed so knowledgable about South America so I went searching. Her website enlightened me:

Monica's books are inspired by her Peruvian-American heritage and desire to share Latino/a stories with children. "I write from a place of deep passion, joy, and commitment to producing the highest possible quality of literature for children. In my biographies, the lives of my subjects are so interesting and transformational that I am simply giving them voice for a young audience. I don't think it is ever too early to introduce children to the concepts of magical realism, social justice, and dreaming big!" 

It was also interesting to learn that Monica is a professor of English at Northern Arizona University, specialising in Latino Literature and Multicultural Literature. She also has written picture books that are not biographies. A particular favourite of mine is about a non-conformist girl called Marisol McDonald. She really makes me smile. Marisol is a Peruvian-Scottish-American girl who just doesn't match! I wonder how autobiographical the story is?  Below are her two books about Marisol and two of her biographies, a stunningly beautiful one about poet Pablo Neruda and her newest about Pablo Picasso.

Monica's website will show you all her books, give you resources for teaching, film clips, book trailers and a very quick way to get to know her work. I'm not sure when Monica was born. I have taken the date 24/10 from Eric at Happy Birthday Author.