9th July Todd Parr (1962)

Todd Parr's books appear deceptively simple. Parents often tell their children when they come to borrow with their child, 'put that back, it's too easy', but usually the child wins and the book goes home with them. Children like the brightly coloured artwork and the fact that they can read them themselves. What the parents need to realise is that Todd's books deal with big issues and ideas. They need to be discussed. They elicit questions and answers and should be their to start meaningful dialogue between adult and child.

Todd Parr has an extensive website and his books feature on television so he has a high profile, but nevertheless his books stand on their own and are well worth reading. I have bought several copies of his book Reading Makes You Feel Good and turned them into one long continuous frieze for my library. I also especially like The Peace Book; The Earth Book; and It's Okay to be Different.

6th July Kathi Appelt (1954)

I know very little about Kathi Appelt other than that we have three of her books in the library, so when I found it was her birthday I went searching. From her website I learned that she was born on the way to hospital in her father's Ford. Wow, I thought that was unusual when I read that Mini Grey was born in a Mini, but maybe not, when here is another author admitting to this mode of birth. Using Mini Grey's logic though, Kathi would have been named Ford! Maybe we can extend the logic and say that if you want to be a children's writer organise to be born in a car!

The other thing I learned about her is that she is very supportive of librarians and made a film clip expressing this fact, Love Song for Librarians. I hope some student of mine ends up being a writer and says such nice things about their school librarian. I do try to source books for specific children and I do think it is important to match children to books.

The books we have are Elephants Aloft; I See the Moon and Bats Around the Clock, but she has written many more. I particularly like Elephants Aloft because it cleverly written using only prepositions and Keith Baker's wonderful illustrations. Kathi has written a series of picture books about bats and they are illustrated by Melissa Sweet, another of my favourite illustrators so I should source the rest of these.

6th July Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)

Frida Kahlo is Mexico's most celebrated female artist and although she is more revered in the United States than she is here it is still interesting to see how many children's books there are that celebrate her colourful, creative and imaginative world. Even Tomie de Paola has illustrated a book about her life and the most recent book, Me, Frida by Amy Novesky and illustrated by David Diaz certainly entrances the reader.

24th June Leslie Patricelli

Leslie Patricelli is the author illustrator of a series of very funny books for toddlers. The books always make me smile and I like to hear them read aloud by a parent. The books have very bright pages with a clearly outlined, unbusy and unfussy toddler as the main character getting up to mischief. She has really worked out a great formula for this age group.

14th June Janice May Udry (1928) Bruce Degen (1945) Tom Lichtenheld

Three birthdays that I didn't know about last year, so these need to be added to the list with Judith Kerr and Laurence Yep. I know American author, Janice May Udry only because of A Tree is Nice and I must say I think of Marc Simont before I think of her, but nevertheless she needs to be remembered as this book is definitely a classic. It was her first book and it won the Caldecott Medal in 1957!

Bruce Degen is much more prolific and thus well-known, as he the illustrator of Joanna Cole's Magic School Bus series as well as many other books such as Jamberry. You can watch him on a Reading Rockets video.

And thirdly, another American illustrator, Tom Lichtenheld who has become popular in my library recently because of Duck! Rabbit! (written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal), Shark vs Train (written by Chris Barton) and Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (written by Sherri Duskey Rinker).

11th June Satoshi Kitamura (1956)

Satoshi Kitamura was born in Japan, resided in England for over twenty years and then returned to Japan in 2009. He is a prolific and well-regarded illustrator and writer of children's books who has a creative way with perspective and seems to enjoy crowding his books with sheep and cats. He won the Mother Goose award for most exciting newcomer to British illustration in 1983 for his illustrations for Hiawyn Oram's Angry Arthur. His Millie's Marvellous Hat was on the shortlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal last year. He has collaborated with John Agard, Roger McGough and Colin McNaughton as well as Hiawyn Oram.

8th June Judy Sierra (1945) Penny Dale (1954) Best Friend's Day

I wrote about American author Judy Sierra's birthday last year, but this week I purchased Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf! for a unit of work on 'wolves and fairytales' which I have planned for a Year 1 enrichment program and I was so excited by it that I had to write about Judy's birthday again so I could tell the world what a good book it is! B.B.Wolf visits the library (any book with a library in it is worth reading...) and resists all temptation to eat anything. It is such a giggle. Now I need to order Tell the Truth, B.B. Wolf! which is also illustrated by J.Otto Seibold and which I didn't know about till now when I looked at Judy's website.

It is also British author illustrator Penny Dale's birthday. She is well known to the children in my library because of Ten in the Bed and Ten Out of Bed which are on the Premier's Reading Challenge list. She has several other books though which are just as worth reading and her most recent one, Dinosaur Dig is sure to be a hit because it has preschool boys' three favourite things, dinosaurs, diggers and building sites.

And thirdly, it is Best Friend's Day, a good day to search out all those best friends in literature such as:

• Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

• George and Martha by James Marshall

• Houndsley and Catina by James Howe and Marie-Louise Gay

• Dog and Bear by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

• Gossie and Gertie by Olivier Dunrea

• Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes

• Bear and Chook by Lisa Shanahan and Emma Quay

• Cat and Fish by Joan Grant and Neil Curtis