13th August International Wolf Day

Wolves once ranged the majority of the world’s northern hemisphere and were adapted to a wide variety of ecosystems. Over time, that has changed.  Wolf numbers are now vastly reduced in these areas.

Originally, the Grey Wolf was the world's most widely distributed mammal. It has become extinct in much of Western Europe, in Mexico and much of the USA, and their present distribution is more restricted; wolves occur primarily but not exclusively in wilderness and remote areas.

Currently, wild wolf populations representing two distinct species of wolf are found in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa – the gray wolf (Canis lupus), and the red wolf (Canis rufus). Worldwide, the gray wolf, is not under threat.  The red wolf,  found in North America, is considered critically endangered. The biggest threat to wolves is humans whose tolerance of them is a problem.

Given that Australian children would never see a wolf in the wild, it always fascinates me to see how many students at school are so interested in them, not in storybook wolves which there are plenty of, but rather in real wolves and not all of them think they are ferocious and should not exist. They are very sympathetic to wolves and so because of this the library has quite a large collection of nonfiction books about wolves such as these:

         

                        

11th December International Mountain Day

The theme for 2018 International Mountain Day is Mountains Matter. The website states

'Considering the crucial role they play in providing key ecosystem goods and services to the planet and their vulnerability in the face of climate change, we need to step up and raise attention to mountains.'

To raise attention of anything, I turn to books and in particular picture books so here I want to highlight two, an old one and a new one.

• Mountain Dance by Thomas Locker (2001)  This poetic text is accompanied by intense oil paintings that reveal geological details from the base to the tip of mountains. It is accompanied by Water Dance and Cloud Dance but stands alone as a testament to the beauty of mountains. We turned these books into a dance performance for a K -2 school concert. It was stunning.

• Mountains of the World by Dieter Braun (2018) This is a beautifully detailed and illustrated collection of the mountains of the world, part of the new range from Flying Eye Books.

If you haven't access to these two books in your library, of course there are others which will help children be enthralled by mountains. These two will help:

• How Mountains are Made by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
• Mountains  by Seymour Simon



If you want to be more specific, these two books allow students to 'feel' the Himalayas:

• The Top of the World Climbing Mount Everest by Steve Jenkins
• Our Village in the Sky by Janeen Brian and Anne Spudvilas




And for two new stories with magnificent illustrations

• Up the Mountain by Marianne Dubuc
• Secrets of the Mountain by Libby Walden and Richard Jones

3rd September Skyscraper Day

It is interesting that skyscrapers have a day, not that they are not worth highlighting and especially doing it using children's books. This week I bought a new book for the library with 'skyscrapers' in the title so they were certainly highlighted for me. The book Star Gazers, Skyscrapers and Extraodinary Sausages by Claudia Boldt is about Henrietta and her dog Frank and actually has little to do with skyscrapers, but the title is catchy and the illustrations and the feel of the book are wonderful. Certainly lots to talk about with a class here, even if it is not skyscrapers.

A book that is set on a skyscraper in Brisbane is Narelle Oliver's beautiful Home about birds that have been forced to find a new home and choose a highrise roof. Another is the Caldecott Medal winning The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein which looks at an event that really did occur between two buildings that no longer do.

And of course there are a myriad of non-fiction titles worth exploring. The very large and very heavy Skyscraper by Lynn Curley has text that is far beyond my clientele's reading abilities but they seem to love poring over the pictures and the sheer size of the book. Seymour Simon's Skyscrapers is perfect reading and information-wise.

9th August P. L. Travers (1899 - 1996) Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001) Seymour Simon (1931) Nick Sharratt (1962)

Pamela Lyndon (P.L) Travers was the stage name adopted by an Australian actress who was to become the novelist who became famous for her tales about Mary Poppins, an English nanny who perfected a novel mode of childcare. She left Australia in 1924 for London and only returned once for a short holiday, but Australia still claims her as its own, complete with a brass statue of Mary Poppins in a park in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney where her family lived for a while.

Tove Jansson is a Finnish novelist, famous for her Moomin books, stories about chubby, lovable Moomintroll who lives in Moominvalley with his mother, Moominmamma and father Moominpapa. She wrote these books in Swedish but they have been translated into English and in print constantly. This year is the 65th anniversary of the first Moomin book and to celebrate a series of picture books, using Tove's original characters and artwork has been published. The first is Moomin and the Birthday Button. These may lead a new generation of children to the Moomin novels, the most popular being Finn Family Moomintroll. Not many book characters end up with a museum and theme park devoted to them!

Seymour Simon is an American non-fiction author whose books have stunning photographs and just the right amount of text for the children I teach. While most are about science the boys at school particularly like his Trucks and Trains. His website is extremely comprehensive and informative.

Lastly, Nick Sharatt is a British author /illustrator whose brightly coloured illustrations are recognised immediately and they always make you smile. He does 'fun books' and even when he illustrates a novel, such as one by Jacqueline Wilson which has a more serious theme the illustrations are still uplifting. He does the illustrations for Kes Gray's Daisy series and has illustrated books for Giles Andreae, Jeremy Strong and Julia Donaldson as well.