18th October World Okapi Day

World Okapi Day is observed on October 18th. What's an okapi like? Imagine a zebra mixed up with a giraffe, and you've got it. Only found in Congo's rainforests, the okapi is a solitary,  herbivorous animal whose existence is threatened by illegal gold mining, poaching and the burning forests plants for agriculture purposes. This day aims to raise awareness of the need to protect forest ecosystems, as loss of habitat is directly linked with wildlife extinction. 

Many children won't know what an okapi is, but once they do they will be fascinated. See this short video. 

In 2020 when the Book Week theme was Curious Creatures Wild Minds I had lots of fun with my students identifying many of the less common animals, such as pangolins, aye-ayes, axolotls, tapirs etc and was surprised to find so many books sources which featured theses animals. See my entries from 2020 which feature curious creatures and this book:

• Weird and Wonderful Animals  by Rosella Trionfetti and Cristina Banfi

Once you have introduced okapis to your students, they will begin to find them in the index of many animal books and be bringing you the books to show you.

Two stories that specifically feature okapis are:

• Okapi Loves His Zebra Pants by Terri Tatchell and Ivan Sulima

• Okapi Tale  by Jacob Kramer and K-Fai Steele

Curious Creatures, Wild Minds

When the CBCA announced this slogan for Book Week I did wonder how I was going to explain it to and enthuse my under eight year old audience in the library. 'Curious' is a word I use with them quite often and I know that they like to use that word. It is good that it has two meanings.

1. eager to know or learn something  & 2. strange or unusual     
Then if we add 

synonyms: for 1. inquisitive: intrigued; interested

for 2: odd; peculiar; unusual; bizarre; weird; eccentric    

We then have quite a lot to work with. I have had fun collecting books to put together a display. I added the 'wild' from wild minds to make half of the display to be a collection of books that explore unusual wild animals. I started with questions like

• What is an okapi?

• What is an axolotl?

• What is a pangolin?

• What is a tenrec?

• What is uakari?

• What is an ibex?

• What is an aye-aye?

• What is a wonga-wonga?

and then I realised there are so many animals I could add to this list. Just look in books such as 

• Weird and Wonderful Animals  by Rosella Trionfetti and Cristina Banfi

• The World of Weird Animals Series  by Jess Keating

         Pink is for Blobfish

         Cute as an Axolotl

         Gross as a Snot Otter

         What Makes a Monster?

• Who are You Calling Weird?  by Marilyn Singer and Paul Davis  

• Weird Animals  by Mary Kay Carson

• Lesser Spotted Animals by Martin Brown

• Even More Lesser Spotted Animals by Martin Brown

• Who Am I? by Steve Jenkins

• Tenrec's Twigs  by Bert Kitchen

And for those very mixed up animals, read:                                

• Hello Hello  by Brendan Wenzel

• The Wild Fluffalump by Mwenye Hadithi

• Greedy Zebra by Mwenye Hadithi

• Call Me Gorgeous  by Giles and Alexandra Milton

See more on Pinterest here.