October International School Library Month

International School Library Month (ISLM) is an opportunity for those in charge of school libraries around the world to choose a day, week, or the entire month in October to celebrate the importance of school libraries and to celebrate everything great about them.

Here in Australia, ALIA is proud to celebrate International School Library Day. This day celebrates school libraries and their staff and the work that they undertake to support students. This year we are celebrating on 19 October with the theme 'Growing Global Citizens'.

Given that the students at my school have not had access to their library while we have been in lockdown due to COVID, when they are all back at school on Monday 18th October, many of them will be super keen to borrow books. During Zoom sessions there has been a constant lament...I need something new to read.

Yes, my students did have access to online reading resources, plenty of them, 'but it's not the same' they kept saying. Also every time I thought of something I wanted to use or recommend I couldn't just leap up, find it and give it to them. The libraries at the school I work at are very well-resourced and the students have plenty of choice, but they did take it for granted and so did their parents. Students under 8 years old need books! It is very important when learning to read to be able to touch the words, turn the pages, examine the illustrations closely and just 'soak' in the book.

I have been putting together a poster for the pinboard just inside the door , something to this effect. Once before I collected all the library toys together and sat them on the mat reading, took a photo and told the students that this is what happens in the library when you're not here. For some of my avid Year 1 and Year 2 readers I will put a post-it heart and their name on the book with a suggestion from the book saying that they might like to read it.

Another interesting outcome from Covid is the number of parents who emailed me saying I want  to order some books for my child, what would you recommend? Parents borrow a large number of books from the school library to supplement their child's reading or as bedtime reads for their children, so as soon as the library is staffed again we will be putting together book bags for parents. We do this in two ways. They either email us with requests or we supply a 'lucky dip' bag of ten books where we include a selection of picture books, together with a chapter book, a nonfiction information book, a biography, a graphic novel, a textless book, an indigenous title and a poetry book. In this way they get to sample things that they might not otherwise choose to borrow.

To match the theme of 'Growing Global Citizens' we will make sure that the choice is very international. We have a large collection of books that are translations from other languages. We can provide books by authors and illustrators who do not live in Australia and who do not write about Australia. We could highlight some picture books that show children using libraries that are nothing like theirs. They would need to make a bigger effort to access these:

 My Librarian is a Camel by Margaret Ruirs The Book Boat's In by Cynthia Cotten & Frane Lessac That Book Woman by Heather Henson & David Small Biblioburro  by Jeannette Winter

 Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown & John Parra Planting Stories  by Anika Aldamuy Denise & Paola Escobar

 Inside Books  by Terri Buzzeo & Jude Daly

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

     The Library Bus  by Bahram Rahman & Gabrielle Grimard

And for fun

  

Leilong the Library Bus by Julia Liu & Bei Lynn

Now back to thinking about my school library, what can we do to make it more flexible, innovative and contemporary?

16th August Science Week

It is Science Week! If I was at school there would be a wonderful display of books for students to borrow, but we are home in lockdown. Today while planning lessons and locating poems that had a science focus, I thought of all the wonderful poetry books on the shelves at school that would have been helpful.

Here's a list:

* Spectacular Science by Lee Bennett Hopkins

* Our Big Home  by Linda Glaser and Elisa Kleven

* Thank You Earth by April Pulley Sayre 

  

* Volcano Wakes Up by Lisa Westberg Peters and Steve Jenkins

* Earthshake  by Lisa Westberg Peters and Cathie Felstead

* Ubiquitous by Joyce Sidman and Beckie Prange

* Red Sings from the Treetops by Joyce Sidman and Pamela Zagarenski

* Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen (in fact nearly anything by Joyce Sidman)

* Anything by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder

* Anything by Douglas Florian

* A Leaf Can Be

* Water Can Be

* A Rock Can Be  by Laura Salas

 

3rd August Beaks

My friend at Momotimetoread just wrote about Robin Page's new book The Beak Book and while she was doing this I was planning a lesson for Kindergarten on Busy Beaks, a book on the Early Childhood shortlist for Book of the Year. I  find it curious that one aspect of birds can provide so much interest from a reading and illustrating point of view. Two of my favourite picture books are The Best Beak of Boonaroo Bay by Narelle Oliver and King of the Birds by Helen Ward. In these two books the birds are having a competition and what they do with their beaks is considered.

Books about birds are abundant and it is often hard to know which ones to buy. In the library we also have these books with great illustrations

• Bring on the Birds and Bird Show by Susan Stockdale         

• Parrots Over Porto Rico by Susan L. Roth

• Birds of a Feather: Bowerbirds and Me  by Susan L. Roth

• Beaks! by Sneed B. Collard

• The Beaks of the Birds by Richard Konicek-Moran 

and then I have noticed two new ones are just about to come

• A Peek at Beaks by Sara Levine

• Beaks by Curt Hart

21st June Dog Tales

 

I have just come back from a weekend in Canberra. Despite the cold, blustery weather I walked and saw two exhibitions. My colleague and I went to visit Dog Tales: Dogs in Australian Children's Literature because we both love picture books and illustrations. We knew it featured illustrations by Bob Graham, Alison Lester and Ann James. We speculated about who else would feature because most Australian illustrators have books that feature dogs, the quintessential family pet in Australia. 

The most famous Australian picture book dog at the moment is probably Aaron Blabey's Pig the Pug, but there have been others such as Amanda Graham's Arthur, Colin Thompson and Sarah Davis's Fearless, Andrew McLean's Josh, Matt Ottley's Faust, Margaret Wild and Stephen Michael King's Pocket Dogs and more recently Annie White's Clementine.

The exhibition featured the three authors listed and Andrew McLean mainly. I was pleased to see Andrew McLean there because his dogs are especially endearing. His book Dog Tales which may have triggered the exhibition name features so many dogs and Josh  who has  books of his own featured here first.

      

Other dogs illustrated by him that 'shine' are 

• Bob the Railway Dog by Corinne Fenton

• Reggie,Queen of the Street by Margaret Barbalet

• Oh, Kipper! by Janet McLean

• My Dog by John Heffernan

Alison Lester featured in the exhibition because of My Dog Bigsby  who has a book of his own and appears in the Noni the Pony books as well.

Bob Graham has a dog in so many of his books, but in the exhibition we saw the wonderful dog from Queenie, the Bantam and  the dogs from Let's Get a Pup and The Trouble with Dogs. I particularly like the dead-weight dog Bob Graham did in Nigel Gray's books My Dog, My Cat, My Mum and Me! and Come On Everybody, Time to Play!

     

     

Ann James is a dog expert! I love her dogs. See The Way I Love You by David Bedford and Dog In, Cat Out by Gillian Rubinstein among others.

            

Stephen Michael King has illustrated many dogs and he did not feature in the exhibition, some that spring to mind are:

• Mutt Dog

• Three 

• Barney by Catherine Jinks

Books that feature dogs are often winners! They appeal to readers, they are shortlisted and they linger in our minds.

I still cannot read Toby by Margaret Wild and Noela Young without crying. Oh Albert! by Davina Bell and Sara Acton makes me smile. So too, do all of Nina Rycroft's dogs. See Pooka, by Carol Chataway; Good Dog Hank by Jackie French and This is the Dog by Maura Finn. Bruce Whatley's dogs make me laugh, they have so much personality. See Little White Dogs Can't Jump; The Magnetic Dog  and The Ugliest Dog in the World. Tom Jellett's dogs have attitude. See The Twelfth Dog by Charlotte Calder; Seadog by Claire Saxby and The Bad Bassinis by Clair Hume.

Last year My Friend, Fred by Frances Watts and A. Yi won Book of the Year for Early Childhood and When Billy Was a Dog  by Kirsty Murray and Karen Blair and Three were on shortlists. This year We Love You, Magoo by Briony Stewart and Seven Seas of Fleas by Dave Petzold are both on shortlists and could be winners! Australians certainly love picture books about dogs! And if we added all the beginning novels about dogs this would be a very long blog!

1st June Global Day of Parents

This day recognises the importance of responsible parenting in day to day life and was established in 1994. 

World Parents Day is essential as we honour the most important people in our lives. They nurture and protect the child all the time. This day not only reminds us of the selfless sacrifices our parents made for us, but it also reminds us of our responsibilities towards our parents.

The theme for this year is “Appreciate all parents throughout the world”.

I'm sure the children I teach appreciate their parents, but they do enjoy laughing at the funny things parents do. So here are some books from the library where children get to laugh at parents.

• My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh by Nick Sharratt

• Meet the Parents by Peter Bently and Sara Ogilvie

• Weird Parents by Audrey Wood

• Impossible Parents by Brian Patten

• The Parents are Revolting by Danny Katz

And of course there's always the ever popular

The World's Worst Parents by David Walliams.

28th May Hamburger Day

The hamburger owes its name to the city of Hamburg in Germany, but the hamburger is known and loved today worldwide.It is usually some variation of  a meat patty wedged inside a bun with salad and if you live in Australia the salad will probably include beetroot!

You shouldn't really eat a hamburger and read at the same time because a good hamburger drips and makes your hands messy, but some time on this day why not read a book that features this wonderfully transportable food.

Start with 

• Burger Boy by Alan Durant and Mei Matsuoka

Then find one of these three novels

• The Perfect Hamburger  by Alexander McCall Smith

• Hedgehogs Don't Eat Hamburgers by Vivian French

• Stick Dog by Tom Watson

And if you want an information book

•  What Happens to a Hamburger?  by Paul Showers and Edward Miller

•  Hamburgers  by Joanne Mattern

Hope you're  now feeling hungry.

5th May World Maths Day

 I always find it interesting when it comes to planning maths lessons at school. There are teachers who will always ask if there are books that will help with their topic, whether it is counting, measurement, shape or probability. Then there are teachers who would never think to 'use the library' when teaching maths which is sad because over the years I have worked hard on ensuring we have books that could be used during maths lessons. I always buy the books that win or are honour books on the Mathical list each year. The 2021 winners and honour books were announced in April and I have ordered the few that we didn't already have. There are lots of lists online to get you started on your own collection of maths books. See here and my Pinterest page here.

Below are some favourites to get you started on a maths reading session!