October Pizza Month

October is Pizza Month in the USA. The children I teach love pizza, so much so that if I want to reward them for finishing something like the Premier's Reading Challenge we have a pizza party in the library. The students love the thought of eating in the library even if the reality isn't what they think it will be! We read Adam Rubin's Secret Pizza Party and everyone is sworn to secrecy so that the students who weren't there have to keep wondering what it was like.

My students will be back at school next week after two week's holiday when they probably ate plenty of pizza, but nevertheless I have put out a table full of these resources (all the pizza books in the library) to celebrate Pizza Month. I will also add some cook books which have pizza making.

3rd October Wizards - series for beginning readers

There's nowhere near the number of wizard series as there is for witches, and what there is, is extremely light-weight by comparison, but I do have boys who will ask for a chapter book about wizards. These are the three series that I suggest they choose from:

1. Woozy the Wizard by Elli Woodward. The three titles in this series are written in rhyming text and readers who can cope with the text, like Woozy, a confused old wizard who while meaning well does some very silly things.

2. Wizzbang Wizard by Scoular Anderson. There are only two books in this series. They tell readers the story of of Freddy Frogpurse who goes to visit his Great Uncle Sneezer to learn to become a wizard.



3. Oliver Moon by Sue Mongredien. This is the most popular of the series. There are twelve titles in this series and I have children who will read them all. Oliver Moon is the hardest working wizard at Magic School, but at home he has problems dealing with his unmagical parents.


The picture books about wizards are much better, (e.g.  Little Wizard by Kazuno Kohara, The Princess and the Wizard by Julia Donaldson) but my good readers want chapter books and they really don't mind if they are formulaic or a bit 'twee'. The boys who are keen soon move onto Kate McMullan's Dragon Slayer's Academy and become engrossed in the adventures of Wiglaf.

2nd October Witches - series for beginning readers

Last post I wrote about beginning chapter books about ghosts and here I want to tell you about what is popular in the library for my students who love to read about witches. There is plenty to excite those who are fluent readers but not yet ready for the more sophisticated series such as Araminta Spook, Septimus Heap, Ottoline, Goth Girl, Witchworld or Harry Potter. 



I was a witch fan when I was a young reader and there wasn't a lot to choose from. E.L. Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate Macbeth, William McKinlay and and Me, Elizabeth and Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch?though are still favourite books of mine. The witch fans at school start of course with picture books like  Meg and Mog and Valerie Thomas' Winnie the Witch series and as they start to read for themselves they borrow Deborah Hautzig's  Little Witch and Rose Impey's Titchy Witch, which has just been reimaged and reissued.  So here, in roughly increasing difficulty and length is ten other series witch fans will love.

1. Witch in Training by Maeve Friels. Jessica the heroine here is learning to be a witch and there are eight books in which you get to know her well.

2. Heidi Hecklebeck by Wanda Coven. Eight year old Heidi has a secret. She is a witch in disguise and only the family is meant to know. There are currently 16 books in this series  and it is probably the most popular series with the Year 1 girls once they have read all of Billie B. Brown and Ella and Olivia.

3. Dorrie the Little Witch  by Patricia Coombs. This series of books was popular when I started teaching but then they disappeared. They are now back and at least four have been reissued with the original endearing black and white illustrations,  but in hardback. It is a pity the publishers didn't increase the size of the print because my readers are put off by small font size even though there is not too much text on each page.

4. Winnie the Witch by Laura Owen and Korky Paul. These stories originated as a spin-off from the picture books by Valerie Thomas. Recently when I tried to replace a missing copy I saw that these have also been remerged and are now called Winnie and Wilbur. Wilbur is Winnie's cat.

5. Rumblewick's Diary by Hiawyn Oram. Like Wilbur, Rumblewick is a witch's cat. He is tasked with turning Haggy Aggy his unwilling witch into a credible witch. He records in his diary all the problems he has with her. There are two picture books in this series too, with wonderful illustrations by Sarah Warburton.

6. Hubble Bubble by Tracey Corderoy. Pandora's granny is a witch. We meet her first in a picture book with illustrations by Joe Berger, but there are five chapter books for beginning readers, that are full of mayhem and a little magic.

7. Witch Baby and Me by Debi Gliori.  The narrator, Lily is nine and she has a one year old sister, Daisy. She is no ordinary baby. She is a witch baby and nobody knows this except Lily who sees her make the fridge float and turn people into slugs.  There are four books about these sisters.

8. Bella Donna by Ruth Symes. Bella Donna is a witchling – a young witch who must keep her powers a secret, and only use magic when she’s at home in the enchanted Coven Road. There are six books in this series.

9. Monstrous Maud by A.B. Saddlewick. There are six books about Maud and Rotwood where she goes to school. She has a pet rat called Quentin and a perfect twin sister, Milly.

10. The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy is a series everyone should read. Mildred Hubble attends a boarding school for witches and has many mishaps, lots of friend and teacher problems just like Harry Potter, but it is for much younger readers and it was written long before Harry Potter. Some of my Year 2 readers struggle to get into these because the sentences are longer and more complex, but once someone reads them some or they listen to the audio book they are hooked. There are now seven books in this series.

Are there any good witch series for this age group, that I have missed?

1st October National Ghost Hunting Day

I have just come home from school where I was doing the library displays for the beginning of next term. Halloween is quite popular with the children I teach, possibly because of the large number of expat families at school. I like the chance to get all the books out that feature ghosts, witches, wizards, monsters and 'creepy dark'. These books tend to only go out of the library at this time of year when they are 'facing'  children and being talked about. I also take the opportunity to do a pumpkin display and this year bats. In that way there is a good balance of fiction and nonfiction out and there's plenty to explore.

So when I noticed that in the USA the first day of October is Ghost Hunting Day I thought it very fitting that October starts and finishes with ghosts. There's so many good books to read with ghosts as characters. In the the picture books these are popular:
• Ghost in the House by Ammi-Joan Paquette
• Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
• Leo a Ghost Story by Mac Barnett
• Little Ghost by Vivian French
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Susan Pearson
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan
• Ghost  by Luk Depondt and Guido van Genechten
• Ready Steady Ghost! by Elizabeth Baguley
• Zen Ghosts by Jon M. Muth


As the school year gets closer to the end, I also have a larger number of fluent readers looking to immerse themselves in a good chapter book or series of books, so I have also put these 'ghost' stories out on display.



• The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler    (eight books)
• Ghost Hunters and the Incredibly Gruesome Ghost by Cornelia Funke (four books)
• The Toilet Ghost by Pamela Butchart ( one of the three stories from Wigglesbottom Primary)
• Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt (one of six books)
• Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog by Claire Barker (one of three books)
•  Ghosts on the Loose  by Tim Healey  (one of the Mortimer Keene series of five books) )
•  The Ghost Library by David Melling
• The Ghost Teacher by Tony Bradman
• The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler
• The Case of the Graveyard Ghost and other Mysteries by Duncan Ball
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier


Here's quite a list to get you started on the ghost hunt!





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13th September Roald Dahl Day

Roald Dahl Day took on even more significance this year because it marked the day that he would have turned 100 years old. The new movie of The BFG has just been released so the children I teach have a renewed interest in Dahl's books. But, I have noticed, that in recent years less and less of my Year 2 students are reading his books independently than used to be the case. While I still have many Year 2 students who are good readers and can probably read most things if they choose to, they are not choosing to read anything that requires reading stamina on their part. They are turned off by the amount of text, the compactness of text and the lack of coloured pictures. They cannot loose themselves for over half an hour of interrupted reading. There are too many other things vying for their time. They are too busy. Such as shame I think. I yearn for the readers I had ten years ago before devices took up so much of their time.


Because of this, earlier in the year I made a decision to replace all of the library's Dahl books with the new, larger format editions that have coloured pictures. I put them on display and made a point of showing them to the children and there has been a resurgence in borrowing of Dahl books. So much so that when I decided to put together a birthday display last week there was only two of his books in the library, the two books of verse and a biography, so not enough to bother! Inadvertently, we celebrated Roald Dahl Day!

7th September Threatened Species Day

"Threatened Species Day is a national day held each year on 7 September to commemorate the death of the last remaining Tasmanian tiger (also known as the thylacine) at Hobart Zoo in 1936. It is a time to reflect on what has happened in the past and how we can protect our threatened species in the future. A day to celebrate our success stories and ongoing threatened species recovery work."

While there are some books about thylacines I had kindergarten on this day and wanted to read something slightly easier. I had recently purchased Penelope the Mountain Pygmy Possum, which is a story about a pygmy possum in the Snowy Mountains, and these possums are endangered. I knew that the idea of the tunnel under the road would appeal to Kindergarten. They ended up comparing this tunnel with a possum tunnel we have nearby on the Wakehurst Parkway that goes over the road. The information page at the back of the book brought us back to the real issue of pygmy possums and why they are endangered. Many of the children are skiers and spend time at Thredbo so they made some very pertinent connections with the text.  Then the  children wanted to borrow other books about pygmy possums which we don't have, but many borrowed books about Tasmanian devils and bilbies, both of which do also need saving. The conversation came back to the issue of the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect too and Zoos Victoria, so this term's reading has made for some good connections, both text-to-text and text-to-world. 

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1st September Post Book Week

Now that Book Week is over and I have the chance to reflect on past weeks and teaching I want to share some successes. Initially I looked at the shortlisted books and wasn't truly inspired. Many of the Picture Books were too sophisticated for my 5 to 8 year olds and some of the Early Childhood list lacked enough 'meat' to warrant more than a  reading. I planned library lessons tentatively and thought I would try some titles out and go from there. I read Jane Jolly's One Step at a Time to Year 2 and was amazed at how much empathy they displayed and how much more meaning it had to them once they could see that it could be a true story. (See video of Mosha, the elephant with a prosthetic leg).  Mr Huff  was a success with all three grades, Kindergarten to Year 2 and it was made even more successful by having Anna Walker read the story herself as she does on Story Box Library.

The 'sleeper' was Phasmid by Rohan Cleave, the story of the endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect which was shortlisted for the Eve Pownall Award. I read it to Year 2 and they were full of questions and wanted to learn more. First we read the book and didn't even get to the end in one lesson. So in the next lesson we watched this video of a nymph hatching and finished the book. In pairs students chatted about what should happen next for the stick insects and made a list of questions they still had. I couldn't get Lord Howe Island phasmids, but I got two Goliath stick insects for the library and all the students, not just Year 2 are now into keeping a watchful eye on Sticky and Twiggy as they have named them. Yesterday I found two preschoolers with books open looking for pictures of Sticky. They found three pictures of a goliath stick insect and were telling their mothers in great detail about them. I haven't read any stick insect books to my preschool classes. They have just observed them in their jar and become fascinated. On the table with the stick insects we put out any information and story books that we had about stick insects for perusal and borrowing. We were surprised how many we had. If you are looking for some this is what we had.

* Stick Insects  by Valerie Bodden
* Stick Insects by Chris Macro
* Sneaky Stick Insects by Rebecca Johnson
* Weird Insects by Michael Worek
* Stanley Sticks Out by Peter Rigby and Craig Smith
* Good Trick Walking Stick by Sheri M.Bestor
* Invisible Me by Melinda Shoen
* Walkingsticks  by Fran Howard
* Big Book of Bugs by Yuval Zommer

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