Book Week approaches

Welcome back to a brand new school term!

In the rush of all the end-of-term events a few weeks ago, the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) announced the 2008 shortlist for the annual Children’s Book of the Year Awards. The Winners and Honour Books will be announced in Term Three, on Friday 15th August, 2008. This year they are again presented in five categories:

  • CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers
  • CBCA Book of the Year: Younger Readers
  • CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood
  • CBCA Picture Book of the Year
  • The Eve Pownall Award for Information Books.

I found a few minutes between finishing up book raps, rounding up overdues, gathering resources for Term Two units of work, etc, to find out how many books on the shortlist were already in our collection. Quite a few, actually, which was pleasing; my selection criteria must be pretty good. I made some little badges (representing the bronze nomination stickers the books will start displaying in the shops) to put on the covers of the shortlisted books so I could set up a display. It occurred to me that, this year, I can parallel the gold, silver and bronze medals of the Book of the Year Awards with the medals of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Medals
Wandering through the supermarket during the holidays, I found the most wonderful $1.69 teaching aid! Three little “party favour” plastic medals in simulated metallic gold, silver and bronze. The number of times, in previous years, I have been presenting titles from the shortlist, only to find myself really stretching to describe the colour “bronze” to young children – and the number of times I end up realising that many young students simply have no concept, whatsoever, of what a medal is…

Maybe this year my $1.69 extravagance will pay off?