11th May Babysitter's Day

Today we  get to acknowledge the people who offer the essential service of caring for our children on Babysitter Day, which happens every Saturday before Mother’s Day. Babysitters, nannies, or au pairs have been in business since the 19th century when it was suggested that the word “sit”, in this context, originated from hens caring for the eggs by “sitting” on them. 

Early in my teaching career I remember Richard Tulloch coming to visit our school. He was hugely entertaining and such a good storyteller. One of his stories at the time was Being Bad for the Babysitter. The students loved it and often  wrote their own versions of this story with them doing awful things to the babysitter.

Nearly every childhood series of picture books has a version highlighting babysitting. See:

• Franklin and the Babysitter

• Arthur Babysits 

• Llama Llama Meets the Babysitter

• Fancy Nancy and the Sensational Babysitter

• Little Owl's Babysitter

• Max and Ruby and the Babysitting Squad

• Peppa Pig Babysitting

• Clarice Bean Guess Who's Babysitting?

• Owl Diaries Eva and Baby Mo 

• Pinkalicious and the Babysitter

• Mrs Noodlekluger

• Heidi Heckelbeck is the Bestest Babysitter!

• Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter

My favourite babysitting book from a series though has to be this one - An Evening at Alfie's when Alfie and Annie Rose are being babysat by neighbour, Maureen and the house leaks during a downpour.

Here's some stand alones:

• Jake and the Babysitter by Simon James

• That Bear Can't Babysit by Ruth Quayle

• Don't Eat the Babysitter by Nick Ward

• Pirates Don't Babysit by Melinda Long

• Go to Sleep or I Let Loose the Leopard  by Steve Cole

• Don't Forget to Come Back! by Robie Harris & Harry Bliss

And the ultimate babysitter? Mary Poppins

Christmas Books for Under 6s

I have been really enjoying following quite a few bloggers who have been highlighting an advent book each day in the lead up to Christmas. Some have done one a day since the beginning of December. Others such as my friend at Momo Celebrating Time to Read have chosen twelve books. Two teacher friends with young children and another with grandchildren have been enjoying opening a book parcel each day during advent for a shared reading experience. This got me thinking about which books I would put on an advent list or wrap for my advent reading. As the teacher librarian in a school I find myself constantly thinking about what to read to whom. When I read to my preschool and Kindergarten classes in Term 4 as a lead up to Christmas, I read from these books. All have been very successful. You will notice how many of them are either very well known or are by authors who write prolifically for this age group.




1. The Christmas Book by Dick Bruna. I chose this one because it tells the Nativity story chronologically and simply but uses lovely language and is illustrated in the typical Bruna manner, that the children recognise from the Miffy books.

2. How Many Sleeps Till Christmas? by Mark Sperring and Sebastien Braun. This is about waiting patiently, not something children find easy to do at this time of the year. The title question is one that children ask every day as they are counting down.

3. What Do You Wish For? by Jane Godwin and Anna Walker. This book is especially pertinent to Australian children as it depicts a summer Christmas and a typical Australian child's street. Ruby needs to write a wish, but she struggles to decide upon one. Such a good thing to be talking to children about at this time of giving as well as receiving.

4. Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells. I chose this one because I am the mother of a Max and a Ruby. My children loved this and all the Max and Ruby stories. Max's droll questions make everyone laugh. I also like this story because Santa appears in it, but without a huge emphasis on presents.

5. Angel Mae and the Christmas Baby by Shirley Hughes. This is the story of many children under six. Mae's mother is pregnant and tired. Her brother wants the baby to be a boy and Mae wants a girl, so squabbles ensue. It also features the school nativity play which is something most children will experience at some point in their schooling.

6. The Gift of Christmas  by Christine Leeson and Gaby Hansen. I have two copies of this story in the library. They have different titles, but are the same text and illustrations. The Very Special Christmas came with flashing fairy lights on the tree in the book, so you can imagine how much the children like it when we get to the decorated tree at the end. Molly Mouse collects a variety of decorations for the tree and the lights finish it beautifully.

7. Jingle Bells by Nick Butterworth. This is not the Christmas carol. Lottie and Jack are mice and they are having problems with the cat. The bell is part of the solution. When I bought this book for the library it was tied closed by beautiful red satin ribbon which had two bells on the ends, which is extremely fitting when you know what Mrs Mackie finds addressed to the cat.

8. Threadbear by Mick Inkpen. A story about a well-loved toy bear whose squeaker does not work. The bear thinks Santa will be able to help him. It has large fold out pages that the children love, even if they don't wear well.

9. Baboushka (various available) or The Legend of Old Befana by Tomie DePaola. I would choose one of these because they are folktales specific to either the Russian or Italian Christmas tradition that relate the story of the Three Kings going to Bethlehem.

10. Dream Snow by Eric Carle. This one because none of the other stories have snow and as with many of Carle's books it has paper engineering and music, a novelty which will keep everyone interested.


Then 11. and 12. would come from:
Wombat Divine by Mem Fox and Kerry Argent; Doing Christmas by Sarah Garland; The Snowman (show the filmclip) by Raymond Briggs; The Silver Christmas Tree by Pat Hutchins and Summer by June Factor and Alison Lester.

21st April Tea Day

”You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
~ C.S. Lewis

There is nothing nicer than a good read and a cup of tea. So celebrating Tea Day is a must. Tea is not something children give a lot of thought to, because very few of them actually drink tea, but so many children's picture books feature tea. At the very minimum they finish with and 'they all had tea'...it is a warm, secure, happy, family feeling to finish with. Think of The Elephant and the Bad Baby at the end where everyone goes back to the baby's home and his mother gives them tea and pancakes. Think of Alfie Gets in First and how after the problem of the locked door is finally solved everybody sits down for a cup of tea. Yes, these books are old but the pattern continues and now there are even stories with tea in the title.

Many years ago when I started teaching I did a lengthy integrated social science unit called 'What's in a cup of tea?' and my Year 5 class and I explored the tea industry, the sugar industry and the milk industry for a whole term. What fun it was and given my knowledge now of children's literature I would have had plenty of good books to add to it. What a shame the current curriculum doesn't allow for such tangents or flights of fancy anymore.

Below are covers of books in our library that feature tea parties, cups of tea or the importance of tea. The Biography of Tea pictured above gives a comprehensive history of tea and its role in many cultures.

24th January

According to many calendars, yesterday, 23rd January was Measure Your Feet Day. Why I do not know, but when I started to think about books that you could use on a day with this moniker, there were plenty that leant themselves to having fun with this topic. If you want to plan an activity-based lesson for very young children, Aliki's My Feet would be a good starting point. You could also have fun with Dr Seuss' The Foot Book. Two good stories to read which look at feet, their size and gumboots are Alfie's Feet by Shirley Hughes and Muddy Footprints by Mary Small. For children who like ballet, Belinda Ballerina is the star of a series of books by Amy Young. Belinda wants to be a ballerina but she has a problem, two very big feet! And, lastly just because it is a story everyone should read and it is about feet, Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams.

16th July Shirley Hughes (1927)

I love Shirley Hughes' books and my own children did too. They never tired of Alfie and Annie Rose. We lived in a semidetached house when they were little and they knew everyone in the street. They were babysat by a teenager who lived nearby, just like Maureen McNally.

Shirley Hughes is such an astute observer of family life, in particular the family life of very young children. She began her career with Lucy and Tom, then added other brother and sister duos, Alfie and Annie Rose, Katie and Olly. While Hughes may have planned to produce a concept book or a story with a specific theme, it is her characters that make her books. Her characters have lives of their own, and distinct personalities. The reader feels that they know them. Her black-pen outlines and watercolour illustrations have such warmth and her stories such humour that they resonate with the children and the adults who are reading them.

In the Penguin website article on her, Shirley Hughes says, "My books have grown out of real situations with which very small children can identify, perhaps even at an age before they can fully appreciate fairy tales. They are mostly set in a city background - my own part of London to be exact. The domestic details are very local and English, but I hope the themes are fairly universal." Well, they work for me and the children I teach.

In September, Shirley Hughes has a new book coming out, The Christmas Eve Ghost. Like many of her other picture books, this one shows a time gone by, set in the time of her childhood, but still dealing with family life. She talks about it on YouTube.

While Shirley Hughes excels at books for very young children it would be a mistake to think that this is all she does. Don't miss her illustrations in Peter Pan, her book that has a jazz-age Cinderella, Ella's Big Chance, her stories set during the war such as The Lion and the Unicorn and beginning novels such as It's Too Frightening for Me.