Congratulations to Year 4 at Pilgrim School, Aberfoyle Park Primary School Campus, South Australia, for sharing a great new Photo Peach slideshow, “Our favourite parts of Australia”. The students were inspired both by the artwork and written text of “Why I love Australia” by Bronwyn Bancroft (which is one of this year’s CBCA shortlist, Category: Picture Books), and the digital slideshows Penrith PS students have been creating in recent months.
What a thrill to receive an email from writer/illustrator Emma Quay today, with a link to her just-off-the-hard-drive video book trailer for her new Early Childhood picture book, “Nudie rudie”! The book is due in November.
It’s wonderful, and I reckon it might have you thinking back to days of bath times past at your house?
What a fun day, as about 400 Penrith PS students (including the pre-schoolers in our “Play and Chat” group) joined thousands of Australian children and teachers across Australia, in schools and in public libraries, in a simultaneous reading of Rod Clement’s picture book, “Feathers for Phoebe“. Some of us watched a Youtube video clip (below), others read the book on an IWB (above, in our new school library), or using the book with buddy classes.
Here is the ALIA podcast of “Feathers For Phoebe” via Youtube:
Mr McLean reads “Feathers For Phoebe” for Stage 2.
View our Photo Peach slideshow of the event!
UPDATE:
Here is a close-captioned, Auslan version of the ALIA Youtube podcast:
And our PhotoPeach digital story:
Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS
Many thanks to Paul Macdonald and his staff at The Children’s Bookshop, Beecroft, for the invitation to hear Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, this afternoon, discussing their magnificent new picture book, “The dream of the thylacine”. This moving work features “Ben”, the very last Tasmanian tiger, who died a lonely death in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo in the 1930s. Margaret and Ron were generous with their anecdotes, words of wisdom, time and autograph-signing hands, to the appreciation of 70 teachers and teacher-librarians who travelled to hear them. The champagne flowed freely and there were plenty of bargains (and CBCA shortlisted books) for sale in the store.
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2011.
The students at my school have really appreciated “The dream of the thylacine”, which is a strong literary and artistic example of a persuasive text – a very timely book for the lead-up to last week’s NAPLAN test, and for our Stage 3 students studying endangered species. It was also pleasing that many of these students actually remembered seeing the old b/w footage of “Ben”in 2009, when I introduced “How WEIRD is that?” (one of that year’s Crichton Award CBCA nominees) – one of the first film clips we displayed on the old library’s then-new IWB!
Margaret spoke of being entranced by that old b/w footage during a trip to Tasmania, and the text for “The dream of the thylacine” grew from that. Ron talked of his initial reluctance to take on the project as illustrator (and designer), despite their previous successful collaboration on the award-winning “Fox” over ten years earlier. Ron had been deep into “Drawn from the heart”, his recently-published memoir, but inevitably he embraced the uniquely-Tasmanian elements of “The dream of the thylacine”.
There’s a new Australian picture book creating a little controversy, I am Thomas, by Libby Gleeson & Armin Greder.
I trust Libby Gleeson implicitly and I know Armin Greder’s more confronting illustration work from both “The island” and “The city”. If people thought they were ordering a sequel to Gleeson & Greder’s “Big dog”, they’ll certainly be in for a surprise. I did see “I am Thomas” in the bookshops recently, riffled it, and figured it was a picture book aimed more at secondary students – one to keep on a special shelf for teaching purposes rather than for open borrowing.
Last night, I emailed Libby Gleeson, author of the book, for some insights into its theme and purpose. People on the teacher librarian listservs have mentioned that it is included in the current Australian Standing Orders secondary list. Libby is happy for me to reproduce her email on the blog.
Libby says, “Thanks for this [opportunity]:
“There is a wonderful set of teacher notes by Robyn Sheahan-Bright up on the Allen & Unwin website at:
www.allenandunwin.com/_uploads/BookPdf/TeachersNotes/9781742373331.pdf
“It is a dark book in that it deals with the dilemmas of some kids growing up and trying to find themselves in a world of conformity.
“For some people that is a real challenge and it isn’t appropriate for little kids. But the notes offer terrific insights and ways to work with the book in classrooms. I notice ‘Magpies’ called it ‘a masterpiece’. Thank you Maurice Saxby!
“Thanks again for letting me know about [the TL enquiries on the listservs]… Libby.”
So there you go. Straight from the horse’s mouth. So to speak. Thanks Libby! Fast response! Much appreciated.
Leigh Hobbs’ infamous Monsieur Poulet, of “Mr Chicken goes to Paris”, climbs the Eiffel Tower and then (below, in my version of the story) seemingly meets an appreciative, time-travelling artist. (I’m actually working on a book trailer for this CBCA Awards nominated picture book. I hope. I have to produce something exciting for Tristan Bancks‘ final class on Monday night.)
Monsieur Poulet was crafted from yellow, black and white FIMO Soft oven-hardening modelling material. Background artwork is from “Mr Chicken goes to Paris” by Leigh Hobbs (Allen & Unwin, 2009).
I bought my copy of “Mr Chicken goes to Paris” the day it came out. It was one of those books you just couldn’t leave behind in the shop. Earlier this year, when the CBCA shortlist came out, I grabbed a copy for school. At first, I thought I’d have to forfeit mine. Mai non!
By the way, the French chair (below) is an actual miniature prop from the 2001 Australian movie, “Moulin Rouge!”
I must explain, too: I was reading “Mr Chicken goes to Paris” today to a group of K-2 students, one of who just *could not* cope with me calling the main character “Mr Chicken” – especially since we read “Kip” (about a rooster) and “Bear & Chook by the sea” yesterday. Every page, the poor kid kept putting his hands over his ears and yelling, “There. Are. No. Chickens. In. That. Book!”
His young colleagues were telling me, “We all have to just ignore him.” We kept reading, of course, but I had to avoid saying those magic words, “Mr Chicken”, hence the main character was “Monsieur Poulet” throughout!
UPDATE: Okay, I think I’ve just managed to upload my book trailer as a VIDEO PODCAST! Music: “Parks On Fire (California Burning Mix)” by DJ Rkod (feat. Trifonic). http://ccmixter.org/files/DJ_Rkod/14745 is licensed under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/nc-sampling+/1.0/.
What a fun night at Room to Read! The Sydney chapter of this highly worthwhile children’s charity held its bimonthly function tonight at the Kirribilli Club.
“Room to Read” is an international organisation that raises funds to help children in the developing world by building libraries in schools, providing locally published books, and maintaining the children’s right to read and for the girls to have an education; an attempt to end poverty and change the world.
Back row: Sarah Charles, Linly Goh, Susanne Gervay, Deb Abela, Ian McLean.
Front row: Gus Gordon, Tristan Bancks. Photo courtesy of Susanne Gervay.
Deb Abela gave a warm and enthusiastic reading of the new picture book, “Zak the yak with books on his back” by John Wood & Abin Shrestha, and we all received a free copy of this book for attending.
I look forward to finding out a lot more about “Room to Read” in the coming weeks.
I spent last Christmas with a young friend, three-year-old Ben, of Brisbane. I gave him a copy of the picture book, “Where the wild things are” by Maurice Sendak, but the festive season was so frantic he didn’t get much of an opportunity to explore it until the New Year. It has become a firm favourite.
His parents have uploaded the following Youtube video:
Great work, Ben! I’m proud of you!
The mural above was a mainstay of our old portable school library, pinned along a difficult-to-fill strip of ugly wood-panelled wall, from 2001 till the end of 2008. Based on the award-winning picture book, Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks’ “Fox”, the mural was devised by teacher, Mrs Carol Bagnell.
I was inspired to seek out the old photographs because we have some groups of students attending local live performances of “Fox” by Monkey Baa Theatre! It’s been such fun revisiting the original book in recent days, preparing the students for a most colourful event.
UPDATE!
I accompanied a K-2, to the Joan Sutherland Centre at Penrith, to see Monkey Baa’s operatic production of “Fox”. This is based on the children’s picture book by Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks; the book was first published in 2000. The book examines the strong themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy and betrayal. We had a great time watching the “Fox” actors and puppets and listening to the narrator, an opera singer. One of our young students even asked a question at the end, about Dog’s eye patch!
The students would like to share their artwork, drawn as a response to the show when we arrived back at school. SCLB are students from Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2. Click HERE to see their beautiful art, plus some posters from the show.
Still working with Stage 1 on literacy projects this term, I was thrilled with our latest digital success story, again developed from a storyboard, a brainstormed narrative – and all photographed on my iPhone using local found objects and other existing props!
The main difference in approach this time was that the students weren’t currently studying one particular fairy tale in class. My first two batches of Stage 1 students this term took their inspiration from “Goldilocks and the three bears“, three groups used themes from “The ugly duckling“ and an assembly item, and another group parodied “Hansel and Gretel”.
This time, though, instead of deliberately setting out to create a sequel, prequel or parody, we brainstormed “characters you might find in a fairy tale”. We then paired each one up with another character on the list. Thus, one storyboard, for example, featured a princess, a mermaid and a pony. Another combined the characters of a walking tree and a talking cubby house. The strongest storyline seemed to be the one pairing a ladybug with a crocodile and this was the one the students selected for brainstorming their jointly constructed narrative. The ladybug who lost her spots is a digital fairy tale by Class 1S, partly inspired by a clever plot device from the 1963 picture book, “Swimmy” by Leo Lionni. This book was not read to the students. Rather, the students’ description of how a group of ladybugs might thwart a hungry crocodile began to remind me of the old picture book (a Caldecott Medal winner), and I suggested it as a partial solution. The result is perhaps more of a fable than a fairy tale, but ladybugs losing their spots, and being able to retrieve them again, is the “magical” quality, I guess.
What made this particular set of lessons so exciting is the feedback provided to our Reading Recovery teacher by one of our ESL students, and then relayed to me. This student was able to relate the entire plot of the story while it was still in pre-production, and the teacher had never seen him so animated and articulate about his learning before. A great result all round!
Our other digital fairy tales are here.