3rd April Easter Holidays

As we shelved the last of the Easter picture books at school yesterday, I thought about which were my favourites and then I wondered why they were all old. There has been some new Easter books published, but they seem so 'lightweight' and frivolous compared to those I read and reread each year.

For most children, Easter is associated with the Easter Bunny, chocolate eggs and egghunts, but I do think when reading to students that I should be enhancing their intercultural understanding and their child development, especially when it comes to emotional intelligence.

Three of my favourite books to share are inspired by the cultural practice of egg painting. Decorated eggs are found all over the world in many different countries. They are a wonderful celebration of family, culture and tradition.

• Beautiful Eggs  by Alice Lindstrom. This is a large-format board book, but it is not for very young children. It includes a stencil so that you can make your own beautiful eggs.

• Rechenka's Eggs  by Patricia Polacco is about Babushka, an old woman in Russia who is known for her beautifully painted eggs. One day, she rescues an injured goose whom she names Rechenka. After Rechenka accidentally breaks all of Babushka’s eggs, she suddenly starts to lay her own beautiful eggs so Babushka has enough eggs for the festival. She knows she must free her goose and sadly says goodbye. But Rechenka leaves a special gift.

• P. Zonka Lays an Egg  by Julie Paschkis is inspired by Ukrainian artwork. P. Zonka is a hen who appreciates nature more than laying eggs. When she does lay an egg, its designs reflect the patterns and colors of the natural world. All the other hens agree that P. Zonka’s egg is marvellous and beautiful.

Australian picture books that enable good Easter discussions are

• The Smallest Bilby and the Easter Games

• TheSmallest Bilby and the Easter Tale

• The Smallest Bilby and the Midnight Star

There are three books about Billy, the Easter bilby by Nette Hilton and Bruce Whatley and I particularly like the first two because they give teachers an opportunity to explain why an Easter Bilby would be better than an Easter Bunny in Australia, given the damage rabbits do. They also are stories where there is a problem to solve and the possibilities allow for lots of predicting and discussion.

•  Muddy Footprints  by Mary Small and Pat Reynolds is old, published first in 1987, but is still available to buy and it depicts a very Australian experience of Easter in Autumn, not Spring. I have never read it to a Kindergarten class where the students haven't been thoroughly engaged in what will happen.

And some others. I am not a huge Jan Brett fan, but I do love the sentiment of The Easter Egg.

• The Easter Egg  by Jan Brett. While I am not a huge Jan Brett fan, I do love the sentiment of The Easter Egg. Hoppi is excited to decorate his first-ever Easter egg. He searches for an amazing idea but isn’t sure what to do. Unexpectedly, a blue robin’s egg falls out of its nest. Hoppi takes care of it until the bird hatches. The Easter Bunny loves Hoppi’s kindness and decides the empty blue shell to be the best Easter egg of the year.

• The Easter Bunny's Assistant  by Jan Thomas is a book I like to read to my preschool classes with the help of their teacher. One of us is the Easter Bunny, the other the assistant who happens to be a skunk and we read the corresponding dialogue while the students do the actions eg holding their nose!

• Max's Chocolate Chicken  by Rosemary Wells is also a favourite preschool read, probably because it was my own children's favourite Easter book. My children were so like Max and Ruby!

See, all old! But very good. If you need newer, or you want a laugh try these:

• Bun  by Hana Kinoshita Thomson is not specifically an Easter book, but  it is fun and very young children will enjoy the hunt.

• I Am Not the Easter Bunny by T.L.McBeth Everyone, look! It's the Easter Bunny! He says he’s just a regular old fluffy white bunny, but he’s got a vest and a bow tie, and a big basket full of painted eggs. He MUST be the Easter Bunny! Right?

• The Easter Bunny Hunt  by Stacy Gregg and Sarah Jennings. Easter is here! But where are the eggs? Join Cat and Dog as they search for a much-awaited Easter visitor!  When Dog’s descriptions of the Easter Bunny leave a few imaginative gaps for Cat to fill in, they soon find their home full of many other long-eared, fluffy-tailed creatures who are more than ready to enjoy the celebrations…

26th January The Year of the Rabbit (Part 2)

While putting out books today for The Year of the Rabbit Display, I was surprised to see how many series of books for very young children actually have a rabbit as a main character.

See these picture book series:

 

• Miffy by Dick Burn                                                   

• Bear and Hare by Emily Gravatt

• Ruby Red Shoes by Kate Knapp

• Ruby and Max by Rosemary Wells

• Mini Rabbit by John Bond

• Bunnies by Philip Ardagh and Ben Mantle

• Simon by Stephanie Blake

• Davy by Brigitte Weninger and Eve Tharlet

• The Bunny Adventures by Martha Mumford and Laura Hughes            

• Little Nutbrown Hare by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram

• Little Rabbit by Harry Horse

• Little Rabbits by Keith Baker

• Money Bunny by Cinders McLeod

• Feeling Bunny by Trace Maroney

• Lettice by Mandy Stanley

• Betty Bunny by Michael Kaplan and Stephane Jorisch

• Jasper Rabbit by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown

• Ralfy Rabbit by Emily MacKenzie

• Hedgehog and Rabbit by Pablo Albo

• Rabbit and Hedgehog by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

• Ninja Bunny by Jennifer Gray Olson

• Bunny by Claudia Rueda

• Buster Bunny by Peter Bently and Deborah Melmon

• Everybunny by Ellie Sandall

• Fluffy Bunny by P. Crumble and Chris Saunders

• Bunny and Bear by Will Hillenbrand

Then these with amazing toy rabbits:

• Emily Brown's Rabbit, Stanley by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton

• Knuffle Bunny by Mo Williams

And these easy read chapter books:

• Jack by Mac Barnett and Greg Pizzoli

• Rabbit and Robot by Cece Bell

• Fox and Rabbit by Beth Ferry and Gergely Dudas

• Ollie and Bea by Renee Treml

• Press Start! Super Rabbit Boy by Thomas Flintham

• Ballet Bunnies by Swapna Reddy

• Bear and Rabbit by Julian Gough and Jim Field 

• Armadillo and Hare by Jeremy Strong and Rebecca Bagley

• Magic Bunny by Sue Bentley

If you're still reading,  two chapter books to read together:

• The Royal Rabbits by Santa Montefiore, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Judy Hindley 

• Mr and Mrs Bunny by Polly Horvath and Sophie Blackall

I am not going to do another long entry about cat series for the Vietnamese children but there are many. Here are some favourites to get you started:

 

27th March Ame Dyckman

I am always happy to add a new birthday celebration to the library calendar. Thank you Eric from Happy Birthday Author. I can now add Ame Dyckman. We have three of her books and each of them is very special in its own way and nothing like each other. Each has a different illustrator which makes them appear very different too. If you don't know them borrow them and enjoy what the very best picture books have to offer.

4th April Happy Easter with Betty Bunny

I have a family at school who discovered Betty Bunny on a visit to the library. They are regular and prolific borrowers, a mother and her two young sons who are now 4 and 6, but who have been visiting the library for over two years. When they read and love a book they come in looking for more 'by that author 'or 'more about this character'. And this is how their love for Betty Bunny began. The library only had Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake when they first borrowed it and wanted more. While I waited for another to arrive they borrowed the chocolate cake book again and again. So as each new title has been published I've made sure we have purchased them. Just before Easter, Betty Bunny Loves Easter arrived. We hurriedly covered and catalogued it and sent it home on the second last day of school with the boys for Easter. On the last day there were two excited boys at the library who just had to give me a very excited rundown about Betty's Easter book. This is what makes the job of a teacher librarian in a Prep School so special!

Betty Bunny is your typical, if somewhat precocious preschooler, so preschool children can laugh at her and her misdemeanours. There is always plenty to discuss as the result of her behaviour too. In Betty Bunny Didn't Do It, Betty tries to blame the Tooth Fairy for breaking a lamp, but Mum is always a step of Betty despite Betty's negotiating skills. Here is an interview with Betty Bunny's creator Michael B. Kaplan explaining how the series came about. The books are illustrated by Belgian born, Canadian illustrator Stephane Jorisch.

Presently there are five books and a Betty Bunny toy:
• Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake
• Betty Bunny Wants Everything
• Betty Bunny Didn't Do It
• Betty Bunny Wants a Goal
• Betty Bunny Loves Easter

3rd April Happy Easter

It's finally school holidays and I can fall in a heap. The family is all at home so the house is full. It's raining like it often is at Easter. We've eaten copious amounts of hot cross buns which I love and we are planning to cook kedgeree which is a family tradition for Good Friday.

The last week of school was very busy with Easter services and hat parades and an International Day, but in amongst all this in the last couple of weeks, I did have time to read some of my favourite Easter books, Muddy Footprints by Mary Small; Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco; Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells and The Smallest Bilby and the Easter Tale by Nette Hilton. But I have a new favourite, The Easter Bunny's Assistant  by Jan Thomas. This book is a real hoot. I read it to preschool classes with the assistance of their teacher. Like Mark Sommerset's Baa Baa Smart Sheep and Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie  books this book is written for two speakers, the Easter bunny and his assistant, Skunk. Each class teacher and I hammed up the respective parts to make a wonderful reader's theatre rendition of the book. The students loved the fact that skunk smelled and joined in with the humour, holding their noses and warning the Easter bunny about what was going to happen. They even predicted the peg ending. An added bonus of the book is a well set out procedure for decorating and dying hard boiled eggs. This book is such good value all round!