Celebrating Children's book week Pt 2

I read at school recently on some staff meeting notes "Book Week is it still relevant?"... I'm horrified that these words could be uttered by a teacher. In this internet age books and school book weeks have never been more important. The first port of call for most children on embarking on homework or research is the internet... and it's scary. These kids are not checking the accuracy of their information and they aren't really reading much at all. And when they aren't doing research they are still on the computer playing games where once they were reading stories and exercising their imagination. Book Week is more important than ever before and why on earth would you want to move away from a wonderful excuse to take the time to really read, enjoy and involve yourself in books... the curriculum is so packed now it's really hard for teachers to fit in just sharing stories let alone really exploring them...

Off my soapbox here's some more books to share and enjoy...

"But excuse me that is my book" by Lauren Child. Any book by Lauren Child is a winner. This story is one of a whole series of books about Charlie and his little sister Lola. Neat language, funny characters and AWESOME pictures!!!!!! You absolutely have to put on all your best funny voices when you read this. I got told off at the library for reading one of Lauren's books to some kids in the kids section... we were being too hilariously loud... some people should know better especially librarians, oh well such is life!! By the way go click on the Lauren link up there way cool site!! Read Charlie and Lola to your 4/5 year old and up. Read Clarice Bean and others by Lauren to your 7 year old and up. And have fun with it!


'Winnie The Witch' by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. We have been reading Winnie Books since before Kieran was born as my sister Caity was a Winnie fan. There are a whole series of Winnie book and I haven't got all of them but so far the first is my fave. Winnie loves BLACK so everything in her house is black including her cat which is cool when he is awake but not so when he goes to sleep on her chair. So she magic's him different colours. That's him up the top of this post... Way COOL! I can't imagine the book with anyone but Korky Paul's pictures they are seriously cool!



STOP THE PRESS: Way cool site alert http://www.myhomelibrary.org/home.html this site has the coolest ever book plates illustrated by children's book illustrators. What's a book plate you ask? A book plate is a cool label that you use in inside cover of your book to write your name on. The ones on this website come in colour and black and white and are just the best-est ever! And you are free to print them off and use them in your own books or in books you are giving as gifts! I can see the purchase of some big size sticky labels in my future! I tried to choose just a few to share, too hard!!! Imagine letting your kids colour them in and add their own name before they stick them in their very own books... could there be much else so delicious as that?!









Back to our regularly scheduled programme...

'The Waterhole' By Graeme Base. Illustrations, illustrations, illustrations. This book is multipurpose book for littlies it serves simply as a counting book. Then it matures with age... it's about ecology and conservation and there are cool hidden things in the pictures... and the pictures are AWESOME. It's so good you could almost eat it.




'The Church Mice at Bay' by Graham Oakley. From one Graeme to another there is a whole series of Church Mice books and I'm not sure how easy they would be to obtain but they are well worth a look if you can, make sure to try the library. We have had them since NZ had 6 digit phone numbers... I guess I would have been about 8 when we started getting them. Last year I read them all to Kieran and Merenia. I think maybe I'll need to repeat the experience for Mira's in another 6 months or so for her to get full appreciation. But they are just great fun. Lots of detail in the pictures makes them good to read alone. This is my fave, a lot of fun!




'The Viewer' by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan. This is maybe not my first choice of book by these two and I talked about Shaun Tan in another post here. But I also have to tell you about Gary Crew. He writes stories that make you THINK... mostly to think about people and their impact on the world and the people around them. The stories often involves science or history. His stories can be rather spooky and macabre definitely for the older more sophisticated reader. I'd let my kids read them from 9 or maybe a little older for less mature readers.


'For Every Child' produced by Unicef. A bit of a departure from the others in my list. Here's the blurb from one of the websites I just visited."In November 1989, the United Nations formally adopted 54 principles which make up the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. From the right to a name and a nationality to the right to education and play and special protection for disabled children, the fourteen rights most pertinent to young children have been carefully chosen and interpreted here in simple language." And then what it doesn't say is that they got a bunch of really cool illustrators to do the illustrations like Babette Cole, John Burningham and Shirley Hughes. And good book for teaching values and thinking about how we all need to treat each other. Read it to hmmm a tough one... I wouldn't have a problem reading it to a 4 year old... but it'll span a lot of years as the more you know the more you understand. And for bigger kids you could look and think a bit deeper and find out about Unicef and things like that.


'Eats, Shoots & Leaves', Why, commas really do make a difference! By Lynne Truss illustrated by Bonnie Timmons. A picture book for older readers I guess but lots of fun to look at what exactly it is saying. For teachers this would be a good language extender for seniors- get them to make their own up. It really is all about commas here's a couple of example....

"Look at that huge hot dog!" or "Look at that huge, hot dog!"
and
"The student, said the teacher, is crazy." or "The student said the teacher is crazy."

NB; You'll see that where possible I have linked to the books mentioned on www.goodbooksnz.co.nz all books ordered from here have free postage and 100% of their retail profits go to Oxfam! Yay!!! The added bonus is that they are often the cheapest online!

In general I am more of an immediate gratification type girl so if I can I will go to Wheelers. If not then Paper Plus has to make do. But I am absolutely 100% a HUGE fan of supporting independent bookstores especially specialty children's ones. And I so miss MY Dymocks in Nowra... it's always good to have a bookstore where they know your name!!