20th July FIFA Women's World Cup

The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup will take place in Australia and New Zealand, beginning on July 20. 

It is getting close to the end of the school holidays here so a few of the library staff went in to set up the displays for the coming weeks. There will be Science Week, Book Week, the World Cup, Grandparents Day among other things.

We had fun seeing just how many books we had about girls and soccer so that we could make a display ready for school to start next week. I thought we would have some, but was very surprised to see just how many! They made a wonderful display!

Picture books:                                   

• Let's Play Soccer by Ben Lerwill

• Peppa Plays Football  by Neville Ashley 

• Maisy Plays Soccer by Lucy Cousins

• Madlenka Soccer Star  by Peter Sis

• Betty Bunny Wants a Goal  by Michael Kaplan and Stephane Jorisch

• Pass It, Polly  by Sarah Garland

• Sammy Striker and the Football Cup  by Catherine Emmett and Joe Berger

• Goal!!!  by Lydia Williams (the  Matildas' goalie)

• Saved!!! by Lydia Williams 

• Happy Like Soccer  by Maribeth Boelts

• Goal!  by Caio Vilela and Sean Taylor 

• The Field  by Baptiste Paul

• Football Star  by Renato Alacao and Mina Javaherbin  

Blurb: When Paulo Marcelo Feliciano becomes a football star, crowds will cheer his famous name! Then his mother won't have to work long hours, and he won't have to work all day on a fishing boat. For now, Paulo takes care of his little sister Maria and walks her to school, stopping to give his team-mates cheese buns as they set out to shine people's shoes or perform for the tourist crowd. At the day's end, it's time to plan the game, where Givo will bounce, Carlos will kick - and Jose will fly! But when Jose falls on his wrist, will the team finally break the rules and let a girl show her stuff?

Non fiction:

• We Are Matildas  by Shelley Ware and Serena Geddes

• I Can Be a Matilda by Kyla May

• The Story of the World Cup  by Richard Brassey

• We Love Soccer!  by Peggy Harrison

• Let's Try Soccer! by Susa Hammerle  

• Let's Talk Soccer by Laine Falk

• Used Any Numbers Lately? by Jane Lineman and Vicky Enright 

• Football: Teamwork!  by  Jim Kelman

• Winners Never Quit!  by Mia Hamm and Carol Thompson 

• Megan Rapinoe  by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara (Little People Big Dreams)

Readers and short chapter books:

• Olivia Plays Soccer  by Ian Falconer

• Pinkalicious Soccer Star  by Victoria Kann

• Soccer Game! by Grace Maccarone

• Let's Play Football  by Patricia Murphy

• Ruby Scores a Goal  by Rosemary Wells

• Billie B Brown: The Soccer Star  by Sally Rippin

• Game or Not?  by Archimede Fusillo (Aussie Bite)

• Winning the World Cup by David Mezenthen  (Aussie Nibble)

• Great Goal!  by Rob Childs

• Great Save!  by Rob Childs

• Soccer Dreams  by Genevieve Kote

• Sporty Kids: Soccer  by Felice Arena

• GirlzRock! Soccer Crazy  by Shey Kettle

• Andy's Secret Weapon by James O'Loghlin (Hotshot)

• Lola Levine is Not Mean  by Monica Brown

• The New Football Coach  by Dominique Demers and Tony Ross

Blurb: Miss Charlotte - the new coach of a children's football team - has some odd methods to prepare them for the big match, including talking to the ball and drinking a special potion, smalalamiam. Also, she teaches them how to lose! And to have fun. Incredibly, it seems to work. 

• Soccer on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne

• Girls FC  three titles by Helen Pielichaty

• Sam Kerr Kicking Goals  five titles by Sam Kerr and Fiona Harris

31st December Pele (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) 1940 - 2022

It would have been good to be at school this week. My Year Two boys loved Pele and reading about him. They were surprised that wasn't his real name and read to find out more about why he had the name Pele. 

Ten years ago my Year 2 boys would read anything about soccer including stories, but those that I teach now are much more interested in the players than the game and many of them don't even play soccer on the weekend. When the World Cup is on we always do a display and get all the soccer books out, but this time it was so late in the year that borrowing was winding down and students wanted books about individual players such as Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo.

If you are looking to buy Pele biographies for your library these four are very popular with my young readers:

Pele, King of Soccer  by Monica Brown & Rudy Guttierrez 

Young Pele; Soccer's First Star by Lesa Cline-Ransome & James Ransome

Pele  by Maria Isabel Sanchez 

For the Love of Soccer  by Pele & Frank Morrison

22nd June Visiting Russia for the World Cup

At school we put together a display of all the wonderful picture books and novels on soccer as the students became interested in the World Cup. Some of the students were discussing it and I asked them where it was being held. This led to finding out about Russia and locating it on the globe. I had just bought this lovely new book Capitals by Taraneh Ghajar Jerven and we perused the double-page spread on Moscow.

I began to wonder then how many books we would have for a display about Russia. I was surprised. We had quite a few folktales such as Firebird  and Baboushka, many picture books by Patricia Polacco and then I thought of Russian writers such as Alexei Tolstoy (The Enormous Turnip) and Alexander Pushkin (The Golden Fish); musicians such as Tchiakovsky (Swan Lake  and The Nutcracker), Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition) Prokofiev (Peter and the Wolf);  and artists such as Kandinsky, all of which we had books for and could display. See the pinterest selection here.

7th April World Health Day

World Health Day is celebrated on the 7th April each year. It has a myriad of aims but as part of its 1000 cities campaign this year, two of the focusses are to

• design cities to promote physical activity, and

• promote active city life and sports for all.

With this in mind, while accessioning books for the library today I read Goal! by Mina Javaherbin and A.G.Ford and thought how appropriate, a story about a group of boys who play soccer in the street in a town in South Africa. They play with a real federation-size football, that was won by Adjani, one of the boys, 'for being the best reader in class'! But, 'the streets are not always safe', and one of the boys has to be on watch. While they are playing another group of boys comes to steal the ball. Despite the hardship, the football-playing group of boys outwit the bullies and continue playing.

This scenario is very foreign to the children I teach, but they like soccer (football) so this book will be read, just like Tim Vyner's World Team is, and with each reading and each discussion their awareness of how some other children live will be heightened and they will appreciate the freedoms and facilities that they can access .

Javaherbin includes an author's note at the end of her book where she says, among other things, 'to this day, in the face of poverty, bully rulers, and unsafe alleys, people play soccer.' What a great discussion starter and a means of debating how sport unifies people. Good time to revisit Morris Gleitzman's Boy Overboard too, all in time for the World Cup.