19th September International Red Panda Day

I have written about this day before here and here, but given the news a couple of weeks ago I thought I would revisit it. Ravi, a red panda at Taronga Zoo, near where I teach and where the students who are Zoo Friends, often go, even for afternoon tea and a stroll before going home was sent to Adelaide Zoo in the hope of mating with a female red panda there. Two days after he arrived, he escaped. See these news articles here and here and filmclip. It makes for a good story to share with a class and an excuse to read more about them. This tale had a good ending. Earlier in the year a red panda escaped from Symbio Wildlife Park on the outskirts of Sydney and the outcome for this red panda was not good news. With an older class of students who have read these news articles, it would make a good debate topic about whether or not red pandas should be kept in captivity.

As well as what we already had, the library now has a new book in the Zoe's Rescue Zoo series, The Rowdy Red Panda which features a very naughty red panda. Perhaps just like Ravi. 

See other post for suggested reading. If you can find Pip and the Bamboo Path by Jesse Hodgson, it is a beautiful book from Flying Eye Books.

19th September International Red Panda Day

Red pandas are not as popular as giant pandas in children's books, but they still manage to find their way into endearing stories and are worth celebrating on their special day, the third Saturday of  September annually.

Unlike the name and the diet of bamboo implies, red pandas are not related to giant pandas and were discovered fifty years earlier.

If you want a brief, but useful informative text about red pandas for young students and you do not have one in your school library this is a good start. And this on Kiddle. 

In our library we have:

• Red Pandas by Laura Marsh

• Red Pandas by Victoria Blakemore

Picture book stories that feature red pandas

• Pip and the Bamboo Path  by Jesse Hodgson

• Red Panda's Toffee Apples by Ruth Paul

• Hedgehog's Magic Tricks by Ruth Paul

• Rabbit's Hide-and-Seek by Ruth Paul

• Amy the Red Panda is Writing the Best Story in the World by Colleen Venable & Ruth Chan

Look out for Baby Red Pandas by Kate Riggs, one book in a new series for very young readers by a publisher who really knows how to do young nonfiction with spectacular photographs.

16th September International Red Panda Day

Red Panda Day celebrates that smaller panda that is found in the Himalayas. It looks cute, but it features in children's books far less than the bigger black and white panda. In my library there is only one fiction book, Red Panda's Candy Apples and it is written by a New Zealand author Ruth Paul. It is the sequel to Hedgehog's Magic Tricks in which the red panda is a character. A new fiction book, Amy the Red Panda is Writing the Best Story in the World by Colleen Venable will be published in November. The blurb on websites says

" An exuberant, hilarious guessing game about storytelling, creativity, friendship, and patience-with the most adorable animal menagerie you'll find anywhere! Amy the Red Panda starts to tell her best friend Mervin the Sloth a story when-uh-oh-a rainstorm of letters pours down! When it stops, Amy reads a sentence in the sky: Amy the Red Panda is writing the best story in the world... Marvin is there to give Amy just the right inspiration. A companion to Mervin the Sloth Is About to Do the Best Thing in the World, this funny-bone-tickling picture book brings back a cast of zany, irresistible animal friends and an inventive, playful format."

There are more nonfiction titles. Among them, these three: