22nd February Robert Baden-Powell (1857 - 1941)

Robert Baden -Powell, the founder of the scouting movement was born on this day a long time ago. I have had reason to think about scouts in the last week or so, as I am serialising Jill Tomlinson's The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark for Year 1 at the moment. I have read this very funny story about Plop, a baby barn owl many times before and it has never failed me, but this year I am noticing that I have needed to stop to explain more than usual. Why? Well I think it is because the children that I teach no longer have some of the experiences that the children in the story do. They have a bonfire in their backyard and their father lets of fireworks. Boy scouts have a campfire, play in the dark, sing camp songs and drink cocoa. The children I teach only get to see fireworks in a distant display. They have no close experience and they do not seem to know any scouts. There are several scout halls and scout packs in the vicinity, but their cohort are not among those who attend them. My son was a cub and then a scout and it provided him with a chance to excel, something he couldn't do at school and it does seem a shame that not as many children have the chance to experience the outdoors in this way. The picture book version of the book certainly helps to show the students what a scout looks like, and Paul Howard's coloured illustrations certainly add to the book, but the humour of the novel has gone so I still prefer to read it. Look for both versions and the Berenstain Bear series of books has many that feature scouts as well.

27th December Jill Tomlinson (1931 - 1976) Diane Stanley (1943) David Metzenthen (1958)

British author, Jill Tomlinson is one of my favourite authors for serial-reading in the library. Each chapter of her animal stories stands alone and the humour and the characterisation (really anthropomorphism) sustains the story until the next week and the next lesson. For me it is hard to reconcile Jill's multiple sclerosis pain with her humour, but I am sure it is the fact that she could not physically do the writing herself, that makes The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark and Penguin's Progress (renamed The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out) read aloud so well. These two stories never let me down. I read the first to Year 1 and the second to Year 2 every year and then they read the rest of her books themselves. Paul Howard who illustrated the new editions of the chapter books has also published some of the titles in picture book formats, and while they are beautiful, the text has been abridged and much of the humour has been lost. Therefore your library really needs to have both the chapter books and the picture books.

See tomorrow's entry for Diane Stanley and David Metzenthen.

1st April Gina Wilson (1943) Paul Howard (1967)

Amazingly, this British author, Gina Wilson and British illustrator, Paul Howard have done a book together! Gina Wilson writes novels and the occasional picture book, of which we have three. Her best known picture book would be Ignis which I have written about before because of its illustrator, P.J.Lynch. Then there is Prowlpuss, illustrated by David Parkins which is a poor McTavity-the-mystery-cat-type poem, but because it is in a picture book, accessible to younger children and good for a descriptive language and vocabulary study. And the third, Grandma's Bears which is illustrated by Paul Howard, is a softer, warmer story about Nat and his sleepover at Grandma's.

Paul Howard's illustrations are memorable. They are warm, a little 'cherubic' and make animals look particularly friendly and approachable. To see this, look at any of the Jill Tomlinson animal stories that he has illustrated. Recently, while reading The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark and The Penguin Who Wanted to Know to classes we compared the illustrations from an older version of the books with Howard's new illustrations. The children decided that the new illustrations 'were mischievous and cheeky' much more in keeping with Tomlinson's humorous stories. So, hopefully Howard will continue to turn the rest of Tomlinson's stories into beautiful picture books.