19th August Book Week Connect to Reading Part 2

I shared the shortlist for the Picture Book with my four classes of Year 2 students. I agonised over whether to buy The Rules of Summer as I thought the illustrations were quite dark and the rules worded rather negatively and that I would need to do too much scaffolding to do it justice in one or two thirty minute library lessons. I thought I would wait and see if it won and then decide. Well it did win and I am still not sure what I want to do!

The other shortlisted books were fun to share and easy to use the connection theme with. We stared with King Pig  because the students all wanted to read it. They thought it would be funny and they 'love' Nick Bland books. We book talked it in pairs where the students had to focus on what made it funny and discuss whether or not it had a message or theme. They easily recognised the theme but were surprised that a humorous story could have a serious message. This prompted revisiting other books they knew such as Click Clack Moo Cows that Type  and Farmer Duck.

It also led effortlessly to The Windy Farm which also looked as if it would be humorous. Similarly here the students worked out that this was not only funny but had a deeper message. Two of the classes were currently studying the environment and were keen to talk about energy sources and how common wind energy was. This led naturally to the book Energy Island  by Allan Drummond which tells the story of Samso, a Danish island that is powered by wind energy.

I thought Toby the character in Parachute  may have been too young for my Year 2 students to relate to, but in their Book Talk pairs they quickly began to talk about fears and make connections to themselves. The subject of 'security blankets' arose and one class and I revisited Lisa Shanahan's Gordon's Got a Snookie in order to once again look at the connection between humour and serious themes. The other three classes talked more about overcoming fears and we used Sonya Hartnett's  Come Down Cat to make connections, both literally with cats and heights, but inferentially about how to and when to be brave.

And lastly,  Silver Buttons  which was my favourite and the easiest to get the students involved in. We talked about small increments of time and what could be done in them. We timed activities with stopwatches. We looked at what is 'momentous' and what is 'mundane' and argued the story events inclusion or not.  The Book Talk final discussion was to sum up the book in one word. I was amazed by how well the students did this. There was the obvious 'minute', but others were 'time', 'life', celebration', and 'importance'. I used At the Same Moment Around the World and Just a Second as either pre or post reading.

King Pig  and  Silver Buttons were the most popular of the books we read when the students voted.

18th June Refugee Week

Day 2 of Refugee Week! Australian authors and illustrators have excelled at producing wonderful books on the themes of refugees, immigration, change, and coping in a new environment. Novels include:

• Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman

• Onion Tears by Diana Kidd

• No Guns For Asmir by Christobel Mattingley and

• Mahtab's Story by Libby Gleeson.

And two very powerful, outstanding picture books, that are often considered to be graphic novels:

• The Arrival by Shaun Tan, and

• The Island by Armin Greder.

All of these are designed for audiences older than my student clientele, but they are books that all teachers need to know about and have in their library for teaching using children's literature.

12th October National Ride to Work Day

NSW Bike Week was held from 18th to 25th September and now today we have Ride to Work Day, neither of which have a direct impact at school, but they do promote the importance of good health and reducing our carbon footprint, so they are things that could be picked up as discussion starters with children. The Ride to Work website proudly states that 'over one hundred and fifty thousand Australian workers are expected to join the commuter revolution and ride to work.' I rode my bike to school every day during primary school and the school had rows and rows of bike racks. Granted it was in a flat country town and another era but it was an extremely enjoyable and sociable way to get to school. Now I swear at the bike riders who are riding their bike slowly and seemingly obliviously in the middle of the transit lane as I drive to school along a very busy commuter route. How times change.

There is a new book in the shops at the moment, simply called The Bicycle which would make a good follow up to any bike discussion you were having with children. It is a celebration of the bicycle in illustration put together by Colin Thompson as a result of a trip to Cambodia with Save the Children Fund. He writes about how this wonderful book came to be, here on the Readings website. A wide range of wonderful children's book illustrators, fifteen in total have contributed, including Quentin Blake and Shaun Tan and a favourite of mine, Freya Blackwood.

Then if the children are inspired by this book and the reasons behind it, Kate Petty's book for Oxfam, Bicycles will allow children to see the role bikes do play in developing countries.

31st March Junko Morimoto (1932)

I have been without the internet for a couple of days which is bad timing because so much has happened this week...the great children's fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones died on 26th March aged 77. She will be sadly missed by those children who revel in fantasy because together with Eva Ibbotson, who sadly also died last year they offered so much, long before J.K. Rowling was on the scene.

And the other news, Australian Shaun Tan won the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Award, so soon after also winning an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for his 15-minute film The Lost Thing. He is the second Australian to win this award. Sonia Hartnett won it in 2008 and it has only been in existence for nine years. I think we should take this to mean that Australia does children's literature very well!!! The citation on Shaun's award said, "Shaun Tan has reinvented the picture book by creating visually spectacular pictorial narratives with a constant human presence."

And, Junko Morimoto turned 79. She is a favourite of mine because she lives locally and I have heard her talk about her life and seen her paint several times. She came to Australia in 1982 and began her career as a children's book author and illustrator. While I find My Hiroshima alarming and hard to share with children, having met Junko and knowing that she lived through this experience makes it all the more poignant and hard to share without emotion. The younger children I teach currently love her more recent titles The Two Bullies and Big Nuisance. You know how much young children like toilet humour when even a book like The Two Bullies reduces children to guffawing because 'the bully climbed out the toilet window!'

11th November Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is observed in Australia on the 11th November to recall the date that World War 1 ended in 1918. In schools and public places at 11.00am on this day, a minute's silence is held and a bugler may play the Last Post. This pause in the day's bustle is to remember men and women who have died or suffered as the result of war. Three Australian picture books that could be read as part of your school day are:

• Memorial by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan. This story looks among other things, at the number of members of one family who have fought in a war and how important it is to remember them.

• In Flanders Fields by Norman Jorgenson and Brian Harrison-Lever is also pertinent as we approach Christmas, as it tells the story of how fighting stopped in the trenches on Christmas Day during WW1 and it helps to show children what is really important when soldiers are away from home.

• The Donkey of Gallipoli: A True Story of Courage in World War 1 by Mark Greenwood and Frane Lessac. This story shows children the amazing bravery and camaraderie among the soldiers.