20th August World Helicopter Day

 

It is World Helicopter Day on the third Sunday of August.

There's not a lot of picture books about helicopters, but there are students at school who are super keen to borrow books about helicopters.

The nonfiction information books are more popular, but there are stories too. 

This story, Yellow Copter  is my 'nightmare' book. It is about a teacher who is stuck at the top of a ferris wheel and she is rescued by a helicopter. When I was 12, a ferris wheel I was on with some young cousins stopped, with us at the very top. Next door in full sight was an open air  aquarium with sharks swimming round and round. We were there for two and a half hours, the longest day of my life!

Not all helicopter books are like this though and this is probably very exciting for readers who haven't had my experience. See all of these others.

20th August International Lighthouse Day

In 2023 International Lighthouse Day is on August 20th.

National Lighthouse Day is on the 7th August in the USA.

The life of the lighthouse keeper of old could be a tough and lonely existence. The first lighthouse was built by the ancient Egyptians in 290BC, and it used a giant mirror to magnify light from a constantly burning fire to guide ships to the entrance to Alexandria harbour.

Fast-forward to the 17th century when maritime trade boomed and so did lighthouse construction. Thousands were built around the world. There are an estimated 50,000 lighthouses in the world today.

I have written about this day before here and here. I have a Lighthouse Pinterest with my friend from Momotimetoread which has all the picture books you could need to celebrate this day, but starting with Sophie Blackall's Hello Lighthouse would mean that you and your students would have a wonderful reading experience and plenty to talk about. Hatchette have teaching notes to help with this.

Having explored this wonderful book at length, it might then be time to look at more factual lighthouse books such as:

• How Does a Lighthouse Work?  by Roman Belyaev

• Lighthouse of Alexandria  by Bold Kids

• How Did They Build That? Lighthouse by Tamra B. Orr

19th August Orangutan Day

With their expressive faces and personalities, and their close genetic relationship to humans — with about 96% identical genes — orangutans captivate us. The children who use the library are always keen to learn more about them. 

Even older books like Mang by Joan van Loon, Little Tang  by Sally Grindley and Imagine You're an Orangutan by Karen Wallace are still borrowed.

Orangutans are great apes that are only found now in Borneo and Sumatra. They are the most aboreal of all the great apes which means that they spend most of their life in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies.

Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates. They use sophisticated tools and  construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. 

• Orangutans Build Nests in Trees  by Elizabeth Raum

• Orangutan Hats and Other Tools Animals Use  by Richard Haynes

All three orangutan species are considered critically endangered. The apes' learning abilities have been studied extensively. 

• The Emerald Forest  by Catherine Ward and Karin Littlewood is a new book that is set in tropical Sumatra, an island that has lost almost half of its rainforest cover in recent years. The story graphically describes the reactions of an orangutan family to the destruction of their age-old home, but also shows how wildlife campaigners are bringing hope for the future.

• Saving Urangutans  by Carla Litchfield

• Orangutan Houdini  by Laurel Neme

This is the true story of Fu Manchu, an adult male orangutan, who relishes outsmarting his friend, zookeeper Jerry Stones. He does just that when he escapes his enclosure at will and spends sunny days with the elephants in another part of the zoo. Jerry soon discovers that Fu can open the locked door, but can't figure out how he does it. Read it to find out how.

Of course there's some stories to share as well:

If you can find Pongo  by Jesse Hodgson in your library you are in for a treat. The illustrations are beautiful!

16th Roller Coaster Day

National Roller Coaster Day is a day in which people are encouraged to get out to their favourite amusement parks and enjoy a ride on a roller coaster. 

Here's another of those words like icecream (ice cream) where I think of roller coaster as one word, rollercoaster because it is a new entity not a coast that rolls or a roll that coasts. I'm not a fan of roller coasters or ferris wheels as I like to have my feet flat on the ground, but I do know that many children love them and can't wait until they are tall enough to go on the one they want to ride.

If like me you would prefer to live vicariously and read about them, try these:

Information:

• Ride that Rollercoaster! by Louise and Richard Spilsbury

• Amazing Rollercoasters  by Anita Nathan Amin

• Ripley Readers: Roller Coasters

Stories:

• Roller Coaster  by Marla Frazee

• The Roller Coaster Ride  by David Broadbent

• The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster! by Mo Willems

•  I Am (Not) Scared  by Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant

•  B is for Construction  by June Sobel and Melissa Iwai

• Little Elliot Big Fun  by Mike Curato

• When Amelia Earhart Built a Roller Coaster  by Mark Weakland

• Shark and Bot: Epic Roller Coaster Ride by Brian Yanish

• Fox Tails: The Biggest Roller Coaster  by Tina Kugler

• Roller-Coaster  by David Mezenthen

• Heidi Hecklebeck and the Wild Ride  by Wanda Coven

• Spy Dog: Rollercoaster!  by Andrew Cope

• Bear Flies High  by Michael Rosen and Adrian Reynolds

Search this out in the library or on Youtube because the story is worthwhile

Bear is playing on the beach and, seeing the seagulls wheeling above him, decides that he would love to learn how to fly. And there are four children with him who know exactly how to make that happen.
An exhilarating story about friends helping each other to realise their dreams - and having great fun doing it

• The Screaming Mean Machine  by Joy Cowley and David Cox 

This story is also out of print, but you will find it on Youtube. It  epitomises all of the roller coaster feelings. The language is wonderful and so good for showing students how to express drama and tension in their own writing.

A young girl wonders if, now that she is big enough, she will be able to overcome her fears and ride the roller coaster at the amusement park. 

13th August Builders Day

Builders' Day is the professional holiday of all people involved in the construction process, although engineers and architects have their separate professional days as well. It was first celebrated in the Soviet Union on August 8, 1956.

Building and construction is a great topic for Prep school aged children. They love building things themselves, they love playing in the sand with trucks and diggers and they are fascinated by flouro clothing and hard hats.

There's an abundance of picture books about building and they make a wonderful display in the library. Put out some plastic trucks, diggers and blocks and there will be the opportunity for building.

Start with a fabulous book like Christy Hale's Dreaming Up  as a focus and then add whatever else you think will be borrowed. I would add:

• Ready, Set, Build! by Meg Fleming and Jarvis

• Building a House by Byron Barton

• Blue, the Builder's Dog  by Jennifer Storer and Andrew Joyner

• A Girl Can Build Anything by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo Pat Zietlow Miller 

• Watcha Building? by Andrew Daddo and Stephen Michael King

• Let's Build a House by Mike Lucas and Daron Parton

• Let's Build a House by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom

• Let's Build a Backyard by Mike Lucas and Daron Parton

• Let's Build a Boat by Jane Godwin and Meg Rennie

• Let's Build  by Sue Fliess and Miki Sakamoto

• Building a Home  by Polly Faber and Klas Falhen

• Building Our House by Jonathan Bean

• The Little Red Fort  by Brenda Maier and Sonia Sanchez

• Billions of Bricks by Kurt Cyrus

• Construction  by Sally Sutton and Brian Lovelock

• B is for Bulldozer  by June Sobel and Melissa Iwai

• If I Build a House  by Chris Van Dusen

• Skyscraper  by Jorey Hurley  

12th August Elephant Day

World Elephant Day is an international annual event on August 12, dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world's elephants. On August 12, 2012, the inaugural World Elephant Day was launched to bring attention to the urgent plight of Asian and African elephants. The elephant is loved, revered and respected by people and cultures around the world, yet we balance on the brink of seeing the last of this magnificent creature.

The theme for Elephant Day 2023 is  Safeguarding Elephant Habitats for a Sustainable Tomorrow

It is quite some time since I last wrote about Elephant Day and the library has some great books about elephants that are worth searching out.

• The Elephants Ears  by Catherine Chambers and Caroline Mockford is the perfect book to explain the difference between Asian and African elephants. It reads like a folktale, but what it explains to the reader is factual and easy to apply to photographs of elephants.

• Elephants  by Steve Bloom is a factual book for the whole family to share. It has amazing photographs with

Other factual books:

• Elephants  by Seymour Simon

• The Truth About Elephants  by Maxwell Eaton III

Books about why elephants need protection:

• Elephants on the Edge  by Charles Hope

• If Elephants Disappeared  by Lily Williams

• What the Elephant Heard by Charlotte Guillain and Sam Usher

Two books that show what can happen to elephants in the wild and the lengths we need to go to ensure they have a good life are:

• One Step at a Time  by Jane Jolly and Sally Heinrich

• The Elephant's New Shoe  by Laurel Neme and Ariel Landy

Two books that highlight elephants family structure:

• Grandma Elephant's in Charge by Martin Jenkins and Ivan Bates

• She Leads  by June Smalls and Yumi Shimokawara   

• My Bibi Always Remembers by Toni Buzzeo and Mike Wohnoutka

And of course, there's a myriad of great stories. See Pinterest here.

If you are lacking good nonfiction, you can always revel in elephant series that you have, such as Elmer (David McKee), Babar (Jean De Brunhoff), Elephant and Piggie (Mo Willems), The Large Family (Jill Murphy) or Ella the Elegant Elephant (Carmela D'Amico).

11th August Son and Daughter Day

I just read... Son and Daughter Day is a great day for parents to connect and reconnect with their children in a meaningful way. It’s also a great way for parents to show their children just how much they love and care for them and to show them just how important they are in their lives.

For many families this will be the case. I am lucky to have both a son and a daughter and while they are very different people I cherish what both mean to my mothering. Like me they both love words and reading and this makes for many good discussions. They both love boats, like their father and I struggle to understand this obsession, but it also makes for many interesting discussions.

Literature is full of stories of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, starting with the bible stories about Cain and Abel, Moses, Joseph, right up to the parable of the prodigal son. Shakespeare continues this with plays such as Macbeth.  Folktales are full of good and bad sons and daughters. And as Fathers Day approaches your library will be full of stories about fathers and their sons and daughters.

See these for bible stories

• One City Two Brothers  by  Chris Smith and Aurelia Fronty tells how to settle an inheritance dispute between two brothers, King Solomon tells a tale of how Jerusalem came to be founded.

• The Two Sons  by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen is the story of the prodigal son.

A favourite folktale that does this well is

• Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters  by John Steptoe

If you would prefer to just celebrate all that is good about sons and daughters then Ruth Doyle and Ashling Lindsay do this so well in 

• Dreams for Our Daughters

• Songs for Our Sons

Enjoy your sons and daughters today and everyday, read to and with them because before you know it, they will be telling you they are grown up and they will start parenting you!