16th January Appreciate a Dragon (Dragons Day 2)

Do you like dragons? I am not a great lover of reading fantasy, but watching what the young readers that use the library like to read, I know under eights, beginning to be independent readers, like to read about good versus evil, magic beings, duels and fights and adventures where the small are victorious.

Dragons have been part of human history for centuries. These creatures have appeared in the folklore of cultures all around the world.They are mythical creatures with loud flapping wings, flaming breath, and steely scales. They are viewed as unstoppable masters of chaos and so many stories, be they books or films, songs and craft activities feature them. For a large collection of books to choose from see this Pinterest page. 

School for Australian children does not begin until the end of January, so we will not be at school to appreciate the designated day, but our school library has planned a big display of dragon books to begin the year because it aligns well with Chinese New Year as it is the Year of the Dragon. 

It is also a good time to show students all the beginning reading series that feature dragons, and there's certainly many to choose from.

• M P Robertson's The Egg series. These are four picture books with plenty of text and amazing illustrations and these books are a great place to start your 'battle' with dragons.

George knew something wasn't right when he found more than he had bargained for under his mother's favourite chicken. George takes the enormous egg inside and puts it in his room. There he reads stories to it until finally the egg begins to rumble and out pops a baby dragon. 'Mummy' it says. George takes it upon himself to teach the hatchling 'dragony' ways, until one night the dragon flies away to find its own kind.

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- The Egg; The Great Dragon Rescue; The Dragon Snatcher  and  The Dragon and the Gruesome Twosome.

• Paul Jennings Rascal series. There are 14 titles in this series and the stories become addictive with the five year olds in my library. We have the pocket sized copies which adds to their appeal because they look like chapter books.

Ben wants a dragon the same way most kids long for a pet dog. When Dad keeps refusing Ben's request, Ben cleverly finds an important use for the dragon, should the family get one.

• Dav Pilkey's Dragon series. This series has been reissued as part of Scholastic's early reader line, Acorn, which is aimed at children who are learning to read. There are five titles.

Lonely Dragon has made a friend, and he loves spending time with his new buddy! He enjoys telling scary stories, cracking funny jokes, and fixing a midnight snack for them to share. But when his friend appears to be ill, Dragon demonstrates what it means to be a true friend.

– A Friend for Dragon; Dragon's Fat Cat; Dragon Gets By; Dragon's Halloween  and  Dragon's Merry Christmas.

• Margaret Ryan's The Littlest Dragon series is perfect for newly independent  readers.

The youngest of ten dragon brothers, the Littlest Dragon, known as Number 10  always has the best and brightest ideas for getting his own way.

- The Littlest Dragon; The Littlest Dragon Gets the Giggles; The Littlest Dragon Goes for Goal and The Littlest Dragon at School

• Shoo Raynor's Dragon Series has three books starting with Dragon Gold  where we are introduced to Harri who wants to win a school competition to make a dragon that can fly.

- Dragon Gold; Dragon White  and Dragon Red.

• Dragon Masters by Tracey West is part of Scholastic's early chapter book line, Branches which is aimed at newly independent readers. They have easy-to-read text, high interest content, fast-paced plots and illustrations on every page. There are at least 25 books in this reading marathon. In 2023, one of my Year 1 boys  managed to read them all!

Eight year old Drake is snatched up by King Roland's soldier and taken to the castle. He is to be trained as a Dragon Master. At the castle, he is joined by three other young Dragon Masters-in-training: Ana, Rori, and Bo. The Dragon Masters must learn how to connect with and train their dragons--and they must also uncover their dragons' special powers.

• Draglins  by Vivian French (8)

Meet four teeny-tiny dragons in some wonderfully endearing adventures as they leave their home in the attic and go out into the great outdoors. 

• The Dragonsitter series by Josh Lacey. There are ten books in this series.

Eddie is a young boy trusted with an incredibly big task: he must look after his uncle's pet dragon, Ziggy, every time his uncle is off on a holiday. The only problem is Ziggy is a very naughty pet dragon who always seems to get himself (and Eddie) into lots of  trouble.

• Luma and the Pet Dragon  by Leah Mohammed. At the moment there are three titles in the series.

When Luma Dewan wakes up on the morning of her seventh birthday, she knows that today will be special. But she has no idea just how wonderful and extraordinary it will be. For today is the day she will meet Timir – a real talking dragon. Or at least when Luma is around that's what he is. When anyone else is there, he becomes an ordinary grey puppy with a fluffy tail, 

- Luma and the Pet Dragon; Luma and the Hiccuping Dragon  and Luma and the Grumpy Dragon.

• Dragon Slayers' Academy by Kate McMullan. There are twenty books in the series, too many to list.

Welcome to the Dark Ages, where dastardly dragons rule the land and the life of a weedy boy called Wiglaf is about to change forever. . . There's only one place an ordinary boy can learn to be a hero - the Dragon Slayers' Academy. Join Wiglaf on his quest to take on tyrants and battle the most fearsome of beasts!

More series, slightly longer and requiring more reading stamina tomorrow .

Curious Creatures Armadillos (Armadillo Day is the 13th August)

I have been contemplating talking to my students about armadillos because at the moment many of them think aardvarks and armadillos are interchangeable. This is not a major issue because we have neither of these animals in Australia and it is much more important that they know about animals such as echidnas, bandicoots and bilbies etc that live here, but as we are talking about 'curious creatures' and we have books that feature them I thought I would do a little bit of research.  Firstly I noticed that a new Jon Klassen book is about to hit the shelves next year and it has an armadillo in it. Here's the publisher's blurb for The Rock From the Sky

"Turtle really likes standing in his favorite spot. He likes it so much that he asks his friend Armadillo to come over and stand in it, too. But now that Armadillo is standing in that spot, he has a bad feeling about it . . . 

Here comes The Rock from the Sky, a hilarious meditation on the workings of friendship, fate, shared futuristic visions, and that funny feeling you get that there’s something off somewhere, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Merging broad visual suspense with wry wit, celebrated picture book creator Jon Klassen gives us a wholly original comedy for the ages."

Now this armadillo does not look particularly like the ones we have in other books, so all the more reason I need to find a photograph. All the species of armadillos can be found in the Americas. This website gives some good photos and some interesting facts.

Here's the books the library has:

             

• Armadillos by Kate Riggs

• Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World by James Sturm

• The Armadillo fom Amarillo by Lynne Cherry

• Willow the Armadillo by Marilou Reeder and Dave Mottram

• Arnie the Accidental Hero  by Joanne Partis

• Milo Armadillo by Jan Fearnley

• Armadillo Ray  by John Beifuss and Peggy Turley

• An Armadillo in Paris by Julie Kraulis

• Accident! by Andrea Tsurumi

• The Wishing Stone by Steve Smallman and Rebecca Elliott

• The Beginning of the Armadillos by Shoo Rayner 

and two series for chapter book reading young readers

• Hare and Armadillo  by Jeremy Strong

• Adventure Duck vs the Armadillo Army by Steve Cole

1st May Save the Rhino Day

Today I went looking in the library for books about rhinos and found...well not much. It seems that the rhinoceros is not an animal chosen by authors as a character for children's picture books. Is it because they are not seen as having endearing qualities physically or emotionally? But rhinos, especially black rhinos are endangered and we do need to make sure that they survive and thus, the need for Save the Rhino Day.

With my Year 2 classes at the moment we are researching animals of the African savannah and for most animals I have about ten good books. For rhinos only two, which are:

• Black Rhino by Rod Theodorou

• Black Rhino by Malcolm Perry

For reading for pleasure, Shoo Rayner's series that retells Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories are favourites with my young readers , so search out • How the Rhino Got His Skin. I also found The Cross-with-us Rhinoceros a well borrowed story by John Bush and Paul Geraghty.

And good news two new books about rhinos:

• My Rhinoceros by Jon Agee and

• Running Rhino a new title in that wonderful series by Mwenye Hadithi and Adrienne Kennaway.

30th December Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) Mercer Mayer (1943)

Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, novelist and creator of enduring children's books, Jungle Book; Rikki Tikki Tavi and The Just So Stories. He was born in India, went back to England at 5, was educated there and then in 1882 he went back to India as a journalist. While older children will still read Jungle Book in an edition such as Nicola Bayley's, Kipling has been beyond the reach of very young children. But now, because of the amount of time his stories have been around, and because he died so long ago, many of his stories have been retold for younger audiences and with modern illustrations. English author, Shoo Rayner has written the Just So Stories as beginning chapter books, perfect for young readers. They are one of the most popular reading series with my Year 1 students. The boys like to read the whole set and then will move onto other Shoo Rayner books, such as Viking Vik, Little Horrors, Ricky Rocket and Scaredy Cats. Illustrators such as Jerry Pinkney have also taken Kipling's stories and made them 'dance'. And of course if you don't read anything else it is time to dig out Kipling's poem, If and be reminded what sound advice it is.

Mercer Mayer is an American author illustrator, very well known for his series of books about Little Critter, but long before these there were other books worth searching for. His first book, A Boy, a Dog and a Frog is a wordless book with so much to offer, plot-wise, characterisation-wise and pictorially. He did others such as this and then his There's a Nightmare in my Cupboard and There's an Alligator Under My Bed.