26th November Cake Day

It's Cake Day tomorrow! Let them eat cake! 

This post is for my cake-loving, book-loving friend who had her birthday yesterday. I feel guilty because I didn't make her a cake and made her make do with a cinnamon bun.

There are so many picture books to satisfy any love of cake. Here's weeks worth:

• I Love Cake!  by Tammi Sauer and Angie Rozelaar

• I Really Want the Cake!  by Simon Philip and Lucia Gaggiotti

• Whopper Cake by Karma Wilson and Will Hillenbrand

•  Cake  by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet

• Every Cake Has a Story  by Christina Tosi and Emily Balsley

•  Just the Right Cake  by Christina Tosi and Emily Balsley

• Where Has All the Cake Gone?  by Andrew Sanders and Aisha Awaad

and a series Monkey and Cake by Drew Daywalt and Olivier Tallec

If you can't find these at your library, substitute any of these other titles.

2nd July World Porcupine Day

Established in 2018 – as World Porcupine Day or as National Porcupine Appreciation Day, it’s the perfect day to celebrate and learn more about these distinctive rodents. 

The porcupines found in North and South America are good climbers and spend much of their time in trees. Some even have prehensile (gripping) tails to aid in climbing. The North American porcupine is the only species that lives in the U.S. and Canada, and is the largest of all porcupines.

Other porcupine species live in Africa, Europe, and Asia. These animals usually live on the ground and can inhabit deserts, grasslands, and forests.

Known for their quills the porcupine’s body is covered with about 30,000 of them.  Each quill has at its tip about 700 to 800 overlapping scales or barbs that enable the quill to readily penetrate the body of its victim.  Porcupines cannot shoot their quills, but they do detach readily when touched.  Quills are replaced continuously, taking just several months to grow one back. 

Books in the library to celebrate the porcupine:

• A Porcupine Called Fluffy  by Helen Lester  Lynn Musinger

• Duck, Duck, Porcupine!  by Salina Yoon

There are three books in this series about Big Duck, Little Duck and Porcupine.

• Mine, Mine, Mine! Said the Porcupine by Alex English & Emma Levey

• I Love Cake! Starring Rabbit, Porcupine and Moose by Tammi Sauer & Angie Rozelaar

• Porcupines by Victoria Blakemore

• How Do You Hug a Porcupine? by Laurie Isop & Gwen Millward

• Valentine the Porcupine Dances Funny  by  Derrick Brown & Jenny Lewis

• No Hugs for Porcupine by Zoe Waring  (Hug a Porcupine Day is 24th October)

• Hugs From Pearl  by Paul Schmid

• Perfectly Percy by Paul Schmid

• Mr Prickles: An Quill-Fated Love Story by Karen LaReau and Scott Magoon

• Pins and Needles  by Stephen Krensky & Kristyna Litten

• Elmore by Hollie Hobby

• A Friendship Yarn by Lisa Moser & Olga Demidova

and a short novel that is lots of fun

• Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine  by John Dougherty

22nd October Nut Day

On 22nd October it is Nut Day, a day to celebrate nuts and all they have to offer animals, including us, nutritionally. This is not easy to do in schools as so many students have nut allergies. Some students are allergic to peanuts only, Peanut Day is the 13th September, but there are lots of other nuts. How many can your students list? Read April Pulley Sayre's Let's Go Nuts! and make a list.

Looking through the library catalogue for books about 'nuts' I realised that if I exclude the peanut books and the peanut butter books then what I was left with are mainly about nuts and squirrels and the nuts are acorns.

I love oak trees and acorns. I spent many hours as a child collecting acorns and making acorn people and boats and I would have dearly loved to see a squirrel run down the branches of the oak trees, but I live in Australia so no squirrels. That doesn't mean though that there cannot be a 'nut' book display and a cuddly toy squirrel set amongst the books.



Start with the classic Chicken Licken, Chicken Little or Henny Penny, where an acorn falls on a chicken's head and he runs off to tell the king that the sky is falling. Silly, but good fun with all that poultry following him without questioning the initial premise. Then there is a lovely new book by Lou Peacock and Yasmeen Ismail simply called Nuts! which takes sharing and quarrelling to a new level.


If you still want others with squirrels:
• We Need More Nuts! and Please, No More Nuts! by Jonathan Fenske
• Aw, Nuts!  by Rob McClurkan
• The Nut Stayed Shut by Mike Henson
• The Nutty Nut Chase by Kathryn White and Vanessa Cabban
• Scruffle-Nut by Corinne Fenton and Owen Swan
• Nuts to You!  by Lois Ehlert
• Nuts to You  by Lynne Rae Perkins (illustrated novel)

Without squirrels:
• I Want that Nut! by Madeline Valentine ( mouse and a chipmunk)
• Oh, Nuts! by Tammi Sauer and Dan Krall (chipmunks)
• Nuts in Space by Elys Dolan (an elite crew of furry animals)
• a series by Eric Litwin (of Pete the Cat fame)and Scott Magoon
The Nuts: Bedtime at the Nut House (Hazel and Wally Nut and family)
The Nuts:Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants
The Nuts:Keep Rolling!