5th April Richard Peck (1934)

Some websites say today is Richard Peck's birthday, others including Wikipedia say it is on the 10th April. Whenever it is, it is worth celebrating, both for his wonderful books and this poem which has as it's title, every teacher's catchphrase,  'please read for twenty minutes a day'.



Twenty Minutes A Day
by Richard Peck 

Read to your children, twenty minutes a day;
You have the time, And so do they.
Read while the laundry is in the machine;
Read while the dinner cooks;
Tuck a child in the crook of your arm
And reach for the library books.
Hide the remote,
Let the computer games cool,
For one day your children will be off to school.
"Remedial?" "Gifted?" You have the choice; Let them hear their first tales
In the sound of your voice.
Read in the morning;
Read over noon;
Read by the light of Goodnight Moon.
Turn the pages together,
Sitting close as you'll fit,
Till a small voice beside you
says, "Hey, don't quit."

My favourite of his books are his two delightful books about mice, Secrets at Sea and its sequel The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail. These are adventure stories set in the past in Britain and they have a similar feel to stories such as The Borrowers where small characters are able to have  adventures of their own amongst humans.                        

10th April Richard Peck (1934)

Richard Peck is best known for his novels for middle grades and young adults. He won the Newbery Award in 2001 for A Year Down Yonder. However he has more recently written Secrets at Sea, an  irresistible adventure story which features mice as its main characters. These mice are secretly living among humans and when in 1887, the humans undertake a voyage from New York to London by sea, the mice go too. Many of my good Year 2 readers have read and enjoyed this book. For a more extensive review and ideas about its possibilities, read about this book here at Momo Celebrating Time to Read .

Also while researching Richard Peck I learned that he had written an autobiography which included these wonderful words which every school librarian likes to hear.

"I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody;
I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life;
I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself, and I wouldn't mind a map;
I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they're beginning to run out of material;
I read because every journey begins at the library, and it's time for me to start packing;
I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready."

As I write this, it is Friday night and the second last week of term and I am feeling very tired because the library has just been so busy this term. In fact since school began at the beginning of February we have already loaned more than ten thousand books. But the purple words above make it all worthwhile!
This video of Richard Peck talking about why we need to read to children if we want them to write would be good for a parent night at school if I needed to stress the partnership between parents and school when creating readers and writers. The statistics tell me that my parents are very good library borrowers but I guess there's always some I haven't yet convinced.

What's with the mice?

What is with the mice? So many children's novels for six to ten year olds have mice as characters. I have students who are addicted to Geronimo Stilton and will read any of the series of books that started with him. I have Year 2 students who 'just love' Emily Bearn's Tumtum and Nutmeg series, even boys. In a quest to stretch these good readers I bought some other titles with mice as main characters. Four that I bought were beautiful hardback books, 'ooh just like Despereaux' said one of my girls and readily embarked on Cynthia Voigt's Young Fredle. Back she came saying, 'this was good, what next?', so then she read Bless This Mouse  by Lois Lowry. Such good authors writing for younger children, what a joy! The other two were Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck and  A Nest For Celeste by Henry Cole, also good reads with quality black and white illustrations.

So you can imagine my joy recently when I saw a small hardback novel about a mouse written by Rosemary Wells and illustrated by the Redwall illustrator, Christopher Denise called Following Grandfather. I bought it and went home to read. It is not in the same category as the books above. In fact I am not sure who it is for.  What audience did Rosemary Wells have in mind? It is about a very close, warm relationship between Jenny and her grandfather. He seems to have raised Jenny because her parents are busy running a restaurant, but then he dies and Jenny is left 'searching' for him. So yes, it is a book about death and the severing of strong ties. Is this for all eight year olds or specifically for a child in need of reassurance after the death of a grandparent? It is set in Boston and draws on the history of Italian immigration to that area and this context, I think will be difficult for young Australian readers. Jenny is named for her grandmother, Jennie, so why change the spelling of the name?  It is a warm, well-written story and the opening paragraph kept me reading. It is also a lovely looking book with crisp white paper and appears to be the perfect size, but for me, it just falls short of hitting a target.