16th - 22nd June Pollinator Week

Following on from BEAD comes Pollinator Week. We haven't celebrated this in the library before, but it would make a fantastic display!


 

Pollinator Week 2025 is a celebration of the vital role that pollinators play in our ecosystems, economies, and agriculture. Under the inspiring theme "Pollinators Weave Connections," this year's event urges us to appreciate the essential role pollinators play in creating and expressing human culture, in all of its forms. These essential creatures, including bees, butterflies, moths, bats, beetles, and hummingbirds, are the unsung heroes behind the food we enjoy and the beauty that surrounds us. As we reflect on the interconnectedness of our world, let's unite in a collective effort to protect and preserve these crucial pollinators.

Your library display can feature books about bees, butterflies, moths, bats, beetles and hummingbirds. Australia doesn't have any native hummingbirds, but our library does have some beautiful books about them.

Start with this wonderful book from the CSIRO:

• Pollination  by Christopher Cheng and Danny Snell.

A child’s day in the garden with their Gran and Pa leads to a wonderful exploration of pollination. Join them in discovering how pollination happens in our gardens and backyards, and the importance it has for our environment. Meet the animals involved in pollination and the plants that depend on pollination to produce our fruit, vegetables and even our clothes!

And this book is coming very soon, The Great Pollination Investigation and How we get Food from Flowers  by Deborah Hocking.

 Take a look inside a flower and find out what all the little parts do, meet the amazing animals that carry pollen from bloom to bloom, and discover how seeds and fruits are made. Look for the adorable bees buzzing around on every page with fun first-hand facts to share.You can carry out your very own pollination investigation with the project at the back of the book and instructions on how to make a pollination wand to tickle your flowers!

Here's some more books which you could add to your display:

7th June Butterfly Education and Awareness Day (B.E.A.D)

The Association for Butterflies is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the welfare of butterflies through conservation, research, education, and support to professional butterfly farmers. In an effort to raise public awareness about the benefits and necessity of butterfly conservation, the AFB hereby declared the first Saturday of June as Butterfly Education and Awareness Day (BEAD) in the hope that the creation of an international day to celebrate butterflies would promote the importance and joy of butterfly gardening and habitat creation/restoration.

If we deepen our understanding and appreciation for butterflies, we can become advocates for their well-being and work towards creating a more butterfly-friendly world.

Butterflies play an important part when it comes to flowers due to their pollinating capabilities. Pollen collects on the body of the butterfly and is transferred onto the flower that it next encounters, spreading the pollen and thus continuing the cycle of pollination. Butterflies are attracted to bright colours such as red, yellow, orange, pink and purple blossoms so if you want butterflies to visit your garden you need to plant flowers such as lavender and buddleia.

Fun facts about butterflies:

• A group of these insects might be called a “flutter of butterflies

• These insects taste with their feet

• These winged creatures can see UV light and have 6,000 lenses in their eyes

• The planet has more than 165,000 known species of butterflies on every continent except Antarctica

Educator's Domain have put together a set of activities that can be used to celebrate this day and of course it is time for a display of butterfly books so students read to increase their knowledge of butterflies. There are so many beautiful books. See here.

29th August Lindsay Ward

I have just read on Happy Birthday Author that this is the birthday of author illustrator Lindsay Ward. She was not an author I knew much about, but when I read this blog I realised the library had three of her books, so I have made a note of this here so that next year we can add her birthday to our library diary. I would like to add her title Please Bring Balloons  as balloons always make for a good display in the library and it sounds like fun.

The library has When Blue Met Egg, A Garden for Pig,  and The Yellow Butterfly. I particularly like the sentiments of the story about the butterfly.

7th June Butterfly Day

In the UK today is designated Butterfly Education and Awareness Day, a day to make people aware of the role of butterflies in pollination and what they can do to ensure there are butterfly habitats close to them. Butterflies are certainly fascinating creatures because of their beauty and delicacy.

Many children's books focus on butterflies, but the ones here, I have included because of their illustrations and/or stories rather than their factual information. They will certainly cover a wide range of uses.

1. Butterfly by Petr Horacek.
2. A Butterfly is Patient  by Dianna Hutts Acton and Sylvia Long.
3. Caterpillar Butterfly by Vivian French and Charlotte Voake.
4.  Caterpillar and Butterfly by Ambelin Kwaymullina.
5.  Ten Little Caterpillars by Bill Martin Jnr and Lois Ehlert.
6.  I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe and Ed Young.
7. Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly by Alan Madison and Kevin Hawkes.
8.  Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle and Julie Paschkis

For more butterfly titles including expository texts see Pinterest here.