14th July World Chimpanzee Day

Happy World Chimpanzee Day!    

July 14 marks the very day when renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall first stepped foot in what is now Gombe Stream National Park in 1960 to study wild chimpanzees.

Her groundbreaking research called attention to this remarkable species and our responsibility to protect them. This special day raises awareness for this vulnerable species and the threats they face in the wild.

The Common Chimpanzee lives in Central Africa, preferring the dense rainforest areas. It, along with the Bonobo are our closest extant relatives, sharing 95-98% of our DNA. Sadly, like most great apes, other than us, they are listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Their rainforest home is being cut down at an alarming rate, further isolating the populations. Threats also include commercial development, hunting and disease.

Whenever we do a display of ape, monkey, gorilla  or just primate books , they are not always well borrowed. (There are lots to choose from: International Macaque Day 16th March;  International Orangutan Day 19th August; International Primate Day 1st September; World Gorilla Day 24th September; International Gibbon Day 24th October; Monkey Day 14th December.)  They are not as popular as many other animals with this age group, even the toys, but we'll have fun in the library celebrating this day with a display of any book about chimpanzees, including all the Willy the Chimp series, Jane Goodall or the Red List of Threatened Species and see if this smaller display is more popular.

We have:

• The Chimpanzee Book: Apes Like Us by Dr Carla Litchfield

• Termites on a Stick: A Chimp Learns to Use a Tool by Michele Coxon

• Chimaka the Chimpanzee by Jan Latta

• Chimpanzees  by Claire Llewellyn

• The Chimpanzees of Happytown by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees

• Chimpanzees for Tea  by Jo Empson

• Cha-cha Chimps  by Julia Durango

• Tano and Binti: Two Chimpanzees Return to the Wild by Linda and Andy Devolls

• Cheeky Chimpanzees by Sally Grindley

All the Willy the Chimp books by Anthony Browne

• Willy the Wimp

• Willy the Champ

• Willy and Hugh

• Willy the Dreamer

• Willy's Pictures

• Willy's Stories

• Willy and the Cloud

• Jane Goodall  by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara and Beatrice Cerrochi

• Jane Goodall: Living With Chimpanzees by Annie Ortiz and Denise Ferrell

• The Watcher  by Jeanette Winter

•  Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell

• Red Alert! 15 Endangered Animals Fighting to Survive by Catherine Barr and Anne Wilson

14th June Skunk Day

There are no skunks, sloths, meerkats or lemurs in Australia, but toys and picture books have certainly made them popular animals with the children that frequent the library. We have just purchased Mac Barnett and Patrick McDonnell''s new book The Skunk to add to the books that can go home with the skunk toy and it went home the first day it was on display, Skunk Day!

3rd April Jane Goodall (1934)

There are many non-fiction biographies for young children on the subject of Jane Goodall, the noted primatologist and anthropologist who worked with chimpanzees in the forests of Africa. She dreamed of working with animals while still a child, so her story is particularly inspiring to young children. For my young audience I prefer to use beautiful picture book biographies together with these factual, photographic timeline books. Our library has Me... Jane by Patrick McDonnell and The Watcher by Jeanette Winter, both of which start with Jane as a child.

1st September International Primate Day

Today is International Primate Day. It was founded in 2005 by ADI (Animal Defenders International). Campaigners all over the world will be highlighting the abuse of our closest animal cousins. Currently monkeys, in particular are used for scientific research and there is a move to stop this.

There are several books ideal for this day, all of which will raise children's awareness of primates and how closely they are related to us.

There are two picture story books about Jane Goodall who has devoted her working life to chimpanzees:

• Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell

• Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winter

Like Jane Goodall, Australian Carla Litchfield has also devoted much of her adult worklife to working with primates. She has written two non-fiction books:

• The Gorilla Book: Born to be Wild

• The Chimpanzee Book: Apes Like Us

and her daughter Kaitie has written a book, The Little One about her life as a child in Uganda handraising a red-tailed monkey. Watch this episode of Behind the News which shows Kaitie and tells the story behind the book.

And of course, who can resist Vicky White's illustrations in Ape by Martin Jenkins.

18th March

Now for the rest of yesterday's birthdays.

Wendell Minor is an American illustrator whose style of illustration is often larger than life, but so realistic that you also feel as if you are there having the experience depicted. In his new book where the illustrations accompany the words of the Gordon Titcomb song, The Last Train, you feel as if you are on the train or watching it across a field. His books that accompany Jean Craighead George's closely observed nature texts also bring you up close to the animals. See The Last Polar Bear; Snow Bear and The Wolves Are Back. Other books where Wendell has brought experience to life are Buzz Aldrin's Reach For the Sky and Look to the Stars.

Patrick McDonnell is an American cartoonist with a very successful comic strip about a dog called Mutts, but I first met his work when I bought his picture book Art and was enamoured of both the text and art. It too is cartoony, but it has Pollock-type artwork and Harold of purple crayon fame type imagination and makes a fun book about a small boy named Art. Recently I read about Patrick's new book to be released in April. Called Me...Jane, it is a biography of Jane Goodall and her gorillas. I can't wait to see it.

And lastly, Keith Baker who is also an American illustrator. I do not know his birth date, but I do know I love his illustrations and cannot wait to have fun with L M N O Peas and Potato Joe when Kindergarten are doing food. His other books are just as special and lend themselves to maths activities, units of enquiry or simply literature response. The Magic Fan has a text, art and paper engineering to elicit extensive discussion and given the recent tsunami in Japan it is extremely pertinent.