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…

11th October World Egg Day

This year’s World Egg Day theme ‘United by eggs’ celebrates how the incredible egg can connect and unite people from all corners of the globe.

Eggs can be found in cuisines across our planet’s cultures and countries, showcasing their universal appeal and essential role in global nutrition.

As well as being an environmentally friendly animal protein source and their abundance of nutritional benefits, eggs have the power to bring people together. They can play a crucial role in fostering cross cultural understanding and promoting solidarity within communities across the world.

On this website there are key messages about eggs, most of which I knew, but this one made me sit up and take notice:

• Choosing eggs helps contribute to a healthier planet for all of us. Eggs require few resources and produce few greenhouse gas emissions.

There are so many wonderful books about eggs, but often the egg is chocolate, green or golden, or falls off a wall and is not a 'real egg' at all. The  books featured here treat eggs as food. Start with this beauty:

Then explore other books which show children various views of chickens and eggs before the eggs become food.

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!

14th October World Egg Day

The International Egg Commission has proclaimed the second Friday in October as World Egg Day. World Egg Day has been celebrated since 1996. According to scientists, eggs are full of nutrients, including health-building vitamins and minerals. Japan holds the lead in egg consumption. Around 16.3 million layer hens are farmed to produce Australia’s eggs. While it’s good news that demand for more humanely produced eggs is growing, with 1.1 million hens raised in barns and 4.1 million hens now raised on free range farms, World Egg Day is a time to reflect on the vast majority of hens still confined in cages – in unacceptable farming conditions.

Do you like your eggs scrambled, poached, sunny-side up or with soldiers? Have fun reading about eggs, laying, producing, incubating, eating, breaking, painting whatever verbs you want to list with the children and of course you need to start with Humpty Dumpty, the silliest egg of all.