30th May Hole in My Bucket Day

On May 30th of each year, National Hole in My Bucket Day is observed in the USA. This wacky holiday is in honour of the fun children's song; There's a Hole in My Bucket. I grew up singing this song on long car trips with my family, but I knew nothing of its origins.  The song originated in Germany in the 1700s. It describes a deadlock situation where the character, Henry, faces problem after problem all due to a hole in his bucket.He attempts to find a solution through his friend Liza’s advice, but he is unsuccessful. 

The lyrics to ‘There’s a Hole In My Bucket’ are a conversation between Henry and Liza. Henry tells Liza about the hole in his bucket and he is advised to fix it using a straw and when each solution initiates a new problem, Liza needs to amend her suggestion. This makes this text a good one for a plot profile using drawing, a role play of the conversation, writing problem/solutions or a hot seat situation where the two characters are interviewed about their motives.

How else could the day be celebrated? Round up some 'bucket' books , put them in a bucket in the reading corner with two puppets...a Henry and a Liza.

You will have no trouble finding the lyrics online, but there are actually picture book versions of the song eg

• There's a Hole in My Bucket  by John Feierabend and Marissa Madonna

• There's a Hole in My Bucket by The Topp Twins and Jenny Cooper

• There's a Hole in My Bucket  by Ingrid and Dieter Schubert

• There's a Hole in My Bucket  by Nadine Bernard Westacott 

There are many picture books about 'bucket filling' as teachers often use this metaphor as a means of encouraging children in their class to think about others eg

• How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath

• Fill a Bucket by Carol McLeod

There are books that feature buckets albeit without holes eg

• Billy's Bucket  by Kes Gray and Garry Parsons

• Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs by Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds

• A Bucketful of Blessings  by Kabir Sehgal and Jing Jing Tsong

• Bravo, Bucket Head!  by Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger

And you might even like to explore the concept of a 'bucket list' which needs no bucket at all eg

• Stay A Girl, A Dog,  a Bucket List by Kate Klise

• Judy Moody and the Bucket List  by Megan McDonald

And two books where buckets feature, but not in the title

• Max Found Two Sticks by Jerry Pinkney

Max doesn't feel like talking but he uses various objects including a bucket as drums.

• Fatou, Fetch the Water by Neil Griffiths and Peggy Collins

The water bucket is empty!  Fatou fetches a fresh supply for a family feast.

5th February Pondering Holes

I've just finished Week 2 of term1 at school and it has been both busy and interesting. In the library we catalogued a new book, Holes by Jonathan Litton. Here's the blurb

Delve into this fascinating book of holes to discover a world of 
burrows and boreholes, subways and sinkholes. From the 
mythical and mysterious to household and human holes,  
find out what makes a hole a hole and how they shape our world. 

It is quite a thick tome for our age group, but it is full of fascinating information, including a section about the philosophy of holes. This led to quite a lot of conversation and  laughter among the library staff and of course it led us off on to all sorts of tangents. Is there a day to celebrate 'holes'? Well, no not really. There is a 'My Bucket's Got a Hole Day' on 30th May, but not one that covers all sorts of holes. Maybe because the phrase 'whole day' is a common one.

There is an amazing number of picture books that feature the word 'hole' in their title though. Of course that started us off on a display. See here for the books the library has. You'll notice these books don't all have the word in the title because we then started thinking about what 'hole' means...'an opening through something' and other words for 'hole'...gap; aperture; cavity; dent; void; pit; cranny; burrow; crater; and even tunnel.

Some picture books for young children are about physical holes, things to  dig, carrying on from Ruth Krauss' classic A Hole is to Dig. Julia Donaldson's One Mole Digging a Hole and Mac Barnett's  Sam and Dave Dig a Hole do this, but books such as Kelly Canby's The Hole Story and Paul Bright's The Hole Story start to play with the meaning of the word 'hole'. Then books such as the very special The Hole  by Oyvind Torseter really start to get at the philosophy of holes.

I grew up besotted with stories about smuggling and caves, probably because of Enid Blyton and stories such as The Secret of Spiggy Holes. My own children grew up being readers who kept revisiting  Louis Sachar's novel, Holes, so obviously holes and their many incantations provide copious ideas for stories. And of course any display has to include books such as Alice in Wonderland which has a hole as a pivotal part of the plot.

Collect a whole lot of hole stories and go make a hole in your reading time!