1st August Horses' Birthday

In the southern hemisphere, the Horses’ Birthday is celebrated by nearly all breeds on the first day of August. The reason for the selection of the first day of August in the southern hemisphere, as opposed to say the first day of January, May or November is that historically, the weather at the commencement of September is just beginning to warm up, prompting mares to commence their oestrus cycle, or ‘come into season’.  

A mare’s oestrus cycle is stimulated by the presence of extended daylight, nature intending that foals be born eleven months later through spring and summer when feed is plentiful so that mares can produce good supplies of nutritious milk. Therefore, mares successfully bred early in September will produce foals in early August.

Stories about horses are always popular in the library. We even have a few students who go horeseriding.  I have written about horse books before, but we have added new books to the library since then. For what there is see here.

These are some:

• Horses Wild and Tame by Iris Volant

• Gallop! 100 facts About Horses by Kitson Jazynka

• So She Did: The Story of May Wirth  by Simi Genziuk & Renee Treml

• Clare and her Captain by Michael Morpurgo

• The Painted Ponies  by Alison Lester

• Wandering Star by Natalie Jane Prior & Stephen Michael King

• Lucy and Copper  by Mandy Foot

and if you are looking for fun short novels, these two series are worth a look:

Fables From the Stables  by Gavin Puckett and You Freeman (5 books)

• Colin the Cart Horse

• Hendrix the Rocking Horse

• Murray the Race Horse 

• Hayley the Hairy Horse

• Poppy the Police Horse

A Roly-Poly Flying Pony Adventure by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre

• The Legend of Kevin

• Kevin's Great Escape

• Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit

• Kevin vs the Unicorns

 

10th November Julie Leibrich (1947) David Elliot (1952) Natalie Jane Prior (1963)

Julie Leibrich was born in England but moved to New Zealand in 1974 where she completed tertiary study in psychology. Subsequently she has become a poet and children's book writer. Two books of Julie's that should be in libraries for young children are The Biggest Number in the Universe and Nesta and the Missing Zero. Although they stand alone as read-alouds they can easily be used to integrate with a maths lesson, instil a love of numbers or start a discussion that is maths focussed. Nesta and her next door neighbour, Mr Abacus, a mathematician are central to both stories.

David Elliot also lives in New Zealand. He was born there. He is an award-winning illustrator and author of children's books. He is probably best known for his wonderful drawings that accompany Brian Jacques' Redwall and Castaways series, but he has picture books of his own...two about a loveable penguin, Sydney (Sydney and the Sea Monster and Sydney and the Whalebird) and one about a pirate, Pigtails the Pirate. He also did the illustrations for the wonderful compilation of Margaret Mahy's poetry, The Word Witch.

Natalie Jane Prior is an Australian author who is responsible for several series of books that are popular with young readers. Three series that are well borrowed in my library are the three stories about The Paw, a young catburglar, the four titles in the series The Dolls which are popular with good readers in year 1 and 2 and of course the wonderful Lily Quench books. This series has characters and settings that allow children who love Tashi and Victor's Quest to move on to longer more complex stories.