home > groups > cysnsw > book.week > 2001 > Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza 2001

ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW)

Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza 2001

2001: A Book Odyssey
18-24 August

The 2001 Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza drew together a diverse group of people with lots of great ideas for using the books that have been shortlisted for this year's Children's Book of the Year awards. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who attended on the night and particularly Cameron Morley for taking notes at great speed all night so that we could compile this list.

Enjoy Book Week 2001!

The CYS(NSW) committee

* Early childhood is a new category for 2001.

Early childhood

Max (Bob Graham)
Synopsis: This is the story of Max, the child of Captain Lightning and Madame Thunderbolt who are 'legendary catchers of thieves and bullies'. His superhero parents assume that one day soon he will be just like them. This wonderful story, with its mixture of everyday family life and fantasy superheroes, shows how Max must first start out as 'a small hero...doing quiet deeds'.
Reviewed in Magpies V 15 No 3, July 2000, p 4-5

You'll wake the baby! - (Catherine Jinks, Illus. Andrew McLean)
Performance/Reading/Reader's Theatre - Narrator reads the book and shows the illustrations, while the three characters - Mum, Andy and Annie read from reader's theatre style scripts. Simple props: saucepan lids, hats made from cardboard boxes, mice whiskers.
Reviewed in Magpies V 15 No 4, September 2000 p26

Pog (Lyn Lee, Illus. Kim Gamble)
Synopsis: Pog is a cute little two-metre tall monster who is afraid of children. Every night he checks under his bed, behind the door, inside his toybox and in his wardrobe - checking for lurking children, until one day when he is coming home from school and he finds a frightened lost child, hiding in a hedge. Pog saves the lost child, and allays his own fears and presumably (hopefully?) the night time fears of children everywhere.
Reviewed in Magpies V 15 No 5, November 2000 p24
Use garbage bags to make Pog costumes

Ernie dances to the didgeridoo (Alison Lester)
Alison Lester wrote this story based on her experiences with the Gunbalunya community in Oenpelli, 240km east of Darwin.

Nighty night! (Margaret Wild, Illus. Kerry Argent)
Reviewed in Magpies V15 No 5, November 2000 p 26 and Australian Book Review Dec 2000/Jan 2001 p 57
Mother and baby animal drawings on a noticeboard. Kids match up mother and baby animals.

The pocket dogs(Margaret Wild, Illus. Stephen Michael King)
Synopsis: Mr Pockets goes everywhere with his two tiny dogs, Biff and Buff, tucked inside his pockets. As the story unravels, so does the stitching around the pocket that carries Biff,... with inevitable consequences! We feel quite tense until Biff, Buff and Mr Pockets are reunited at the end of the story.
Reviewed in Magpies V 15 No 4, September 2000 p26
Staff member wears a big coat with toy pups in the pockets. Play out the story while reading. Make your own fluffy pocket dogs out of fur.

Younger readers

Away with the birds
(Broome, Errol) write messages to send via homing pigeon. Attach to balloons and send across the room.

The game of the goose(Dubosarsky, Ursula)
hold a treasure hunt in the library
draw your dream cubby-house
make a cardboard cubby-house for display

Something's Fishy, Hazel Green!(Hirsch, Odo)
name a new pastry competition
make 'cherry flingers' - kitchen sponges with shaving cream and stage a food fight
make a papier mache lobster pinata to open/close bookweek
use codes to solve the clues in a treasure hunt around the library

Two hands together(Kidd, Diana)
Get kids to draw around their hands on cardboard and cut it out. Write some brief information on the hand such as name, age, interests etc. Send to a library in another part of NSW, and ask the other library to respond in kind.
Bush tucker tasting
Make a bush tucker menu
Design clothes on an Australian theme, cut out on paper and have a fashion show.
Play 'name that tune' on a piano
Think of ideas to make neighbours welcome - group discussion

Nips XI(Starke, Ruth)
Multicultural discussion
Draw a cricket dream team poster.
Invent a new Australian sport, including rules, number of players, field layout.

Pannikin and Pinta (Thiele, Colin, Illus. Peter Gouldthorpe)
Odyssey theme
Make a pelican's beak out of calico - kids answer questions and toss plastic fish into the beak
Write a story about a family of birds

Book of the Year: older readers

Reviews

Wolf on the fold(Clarke, Judith)
Reading Time vol 44, no2, p24 May 2000
Magpies vol15, no2, p36 May 2000
Australian Book Review p.56 April 2000

Dogs(Condon, Bill)
Reading Time vol44, no4, p12 November 2000
Magpies vol15, no5, p38 November 2000

Thursday's child (Hartnett, Sonya)
Reading Time vol45, no2, p23 May 2001
Magpies vol15, no4, p36 September 2000
Australian Book Review pp40-41 August 2000

The simple gift(Herrick, Steven)
Reading Time vol45, no4, p14 November 2000
Magpies vol15, no3, p30 July 2000
Australian Book Review p55 September 2000

Touch me(Moloney, James)
Reading Time vol44, no3, p39 August 2000
Magpies vol15, no2, p36 May 2000
Australian Book Review pp55-6 July 2000

Fighting Ruben Wolfe(Zusak, Markus)
Reading Time vol44, no3, p36 August 2000
Magpies vol15, no2, p40 May 2000
contact local PCYC and borrow punching bags and boxing gloves for a display/activity

Picture Book of the Year

Fox(Brooks, Ron and Margaret Wild)
Themes: Loneliness and being alone; deceit; co-operation
Competitions/activities:
Make fox, magpie and dog masks
Practice being each others eyes and wings - pair up the children and play blindfold trust games/navigate a blindfold obstacle course with one person blindfolded and the other giving instructions.
Fox hunt ... put together a scavenger hunt including: find a website about foxes, a fable (clue - Aesop), and facts about foxes from an encyclopedia.

Rain dance (Huxley, Dee and Cathy Applegate)
Themes: Rain, drought-breaking, farm for sale, dancing
Competitions/activities:
African style rain stick/CD sound effects
Talk about Native American rain dances, show pictures and play music
Make coloured sand pictures/bottles - use cooking salt if sand isn't readily available (see instructions below)
Drama/Dance: Put on the CD with rain sound effects and get the children to improvise their own rain dance.
Make 'snow domes' with glitter for the rain and plastic figures for the girl and her dog.

Snow dome instructions
Materials

One clean small jar (eg. baby food jar) - wash off label.
Small plastic figure(s) - make sure figure fits in the jar.
Super-glue
2 teaspoons of glitter
A few drops of glycerin (to stabilise the glitter and make it swirl slowly)

Glue the figures to the inside of the lid - make sure you leave enough space around the edge for the jar to screw on.
Fill the jar with water until the water is 1.0cm from the top.
Put 2 teaspoons of glitter into the water for the 'snow'.
Add a few drops of glycerin.
Put glue around the inside edge of the lid, put a few drops around the rim of the jar too. Screw lid on.
Make sure jar is upright and let the glue dry.

Glitterdomes: http://www.homeschoolzone.com/craft/glitterdome.htm

Making coloured sand bottles and crafts
You can get the same effect by using cooking salt in place of the sand.
There are two different ways to colour sand/salt, either using chalk or food colouring.
Sandy bottles: http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/sandybtl.html Sand in a bottle: http://seniorliving.about.com/people/seniorliving/library/crafts/blcraft_sandinbottle.htm Sand colouring: http://www.inmotion-pcs.com/amass/theBOSS/sand.html

Faust's party(Ottley, Matt)
Themes: Monsters, mischief and mayhem
Competitions/activities:
Make monster masks
Dance the 'monster hokey pokey'
Link with POG and other monster stories for a monster-themed storytime

The singing hat(Riddle, Tohby)
Themes: Discrimination for 'being different'
Competitions/activities:
Use a CD with bird noises, or a duck whistle
Make a hat for book week (complete with bird and eggs) to wear for class visits and storytimes - act as though there is nothing at all unusual about wearing a singing hat. If you can manage it, rig up bird sounds to go with it.
Explore Leunig cartoons for similar themes of being different/out-of-step

The lost thing (Tan, Shaun)
Themes: Being lost, belonging
Competitions/activities:
Make a 'thing' for display or as a craft activity (papier mache and black rubber gloves for the tentacles)
Make newsprint picture frames, and yellow them with a cold wet teabag
Read a part of the story without showing the pictures and ask the children to draw what they think the lost thing looks like.
Have a scavenger hunt for lost things in the library.
Competition idea: What does the thing like to eat? Draw your ideas and write about them.
The business card - have a treasure hunt around the library with clues leading to the next card with a clue and finally to a 'lost thing'.
One of these things doesn't belong game (like Good News Week TV show/Sesame Street) - select teams and get the children to work out which thing is the lost thing and explain why.

Eve Pownall Award for non-fiction

Pole to pole(Freeman, Pamela; Blythe, Philip (illus.))
Provides plenty of opportunity for units of work/activities about the vast variety of birds and animals mentioned in the book, many, which the students would not be familiar with e.g. pikas, lemmings, shrews. Links could be made to units of work about migration (both animal and human) and also back to the Book Week theme 'a book odyssey'
Competitions/activities:
Create word searches focussing on one species e.g. whales or penguins, or on a variety of species. To add interest try inserting the word search into the outline of a polar inhabitant and ask students to colour and decorate the page.
Make an animal bingo game with pictures and the names of the polar animals.

Sick as: Bloody moments in the history of medicine(Jennings, Gael; Harvey, Roland (illus.))
Lots of gory details to keep students entertained e.g. 'doctors can... cut fast. (The world record being Robert Liston in the 1840s, who could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes.)'
Competitions/activities:
Create an oversized board game that incorporates facts from the book. Could be in the form of 'Snakes and ladders' with strikes (medical discoveries) at the base of the ladders and deadly diseases on the snakes' heads. Alternatively control movement around a board game with cards (forward for strikes, backward for diseases).
Props: Scissors, Rolled up newspaper, Blown up picture on p41, Stethoscope, 'Leeches', Rubber gloves, Medical gown, Porridge, 2 bowls.
Introduction:
Sick as is a great book from which to act out excerpts. The book can be used at both primary and high-school levels (select appropriate sections). Some illustrations would not be appropriate for a young audience.
Start with some 'doctor, doctor' jokes.

Acting out
The following sections of the book would work well as performance pieces:
The first surgeons were barbers who moved from cutting hair to cutting flesh. One of their favourite cures was sticking leeches on sick people to suck the bad blood out. Ask for volunteer to lie down and stick cardboard leeches on using double-sided tape.
Invention of the stethoscope. Put your head down on the patient's chest. Say something like I can't hear anything. AHA!!!!!!!!!!!! Roll up some newspaper and listen to heartbeat, explain that this was the first stethoscope. Then show stethoscope being used now.
Looking at digestion. A man had a 15cm bullethole going straight into his stomach and a doctor used this to find out how digestion worked. Another guy kept eating his own vomit over and over again to see what happens. Get two bowls one full of porridge, the other one empty and pretend to keep vomiting into the empty bowl.
Before the invention of anaesthetic, doctors would use all sorts of things to dull the pain. Some of these animal body parts, powdered jewels, plants and alcohol but it still hurt a lot. Act out someone performing an operation without anaesthetic, use pretend alcohol or a bit of plant. Patient can scream all they like. In 1844 a dentist discovered the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. Anaesthesia was born.
If you want to know more about how medicine has progressed through the ages read the book. You will learn about: the role of women in medicine; the discovery of germs and how to kill them; the gruesome things that happened to people who disagreed with the establishment; transplants; the discovery of antibiotics; the worst plagues that have occurred throughout history.

Olympia: Warrior athletes of Ancient Greece(Kennett, David), (Blacklock, Dyan - text)
Rework and recycle components used during the 2000 Olympics. One book you may find useful for craft and displays is olympic cardcraft sports edition published by EandR, ISBN: 1864941294 (Available from Dominie).

Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge(Nicholson, John)
Contains a wealth of interesting historical information and trivia. Lots of scope for units of work comparing life in the 1920s and 1930s (see references to the depression, bridge tolls in the year it opened, 1932 etc), comprehension exercises and trivia quizzes e.g. Did you know that 'the top arch falls about 180mm due to changes in the temperature!'
Trivia quiz
Write a newspaper report about the bridge completion/opening(the celebrations lasted about 2 weeks!)
Write about the 550km relay that brought a 'message of congratulations from kids in the outback' (Reminiscent of the Olympic Torch Relay?)
Have students create a timeline covering the period from the conception of the idea through to the opening ceremony.

Animal food(Pearson, Jane)
Storytelling featuring books with food and animals e.g.: Cat's cake Fowler, Richard; On the trail! Faulkner, Keith; Possum magic Fox, Mem; The very hungry caterpillar Carle, Eric; The little mouse, the ripe red strawberry and the big hungry bear Wood Don and Audrey.
Create a grid with animals in one column and animal food in the other column. Students draw a line matching the animal to the food they eat and then colour in the grid. The same matching activity could be done with as a group activity using a feltboard.

A is for Aunty(Russell, Elaine)
Invite an aboriginal speaker/author to talk about their childhood or include an aboriginal entertainer in the Book Week program.
Have a games from the past session e.g. hopscotch, marbles etc.
Craft: create dolls out of dolly-pegs
Create a grid with letters for students to colour/decorate and/or allow space in each cell for students to draw item(s) that begin with the adjoining letter.
Have students create a single diary entry commencing with a letter of the alphabet as per A is for Aunty.

Display and competition ideas

Displays and competitions on the theme - 2001: A Book Odyssey

An odyssey is a very long journey often taking years and involving many changes in fortune. (journey originally meant a trip of one day only!) The original Odyssey was the epic poem by the Greek poet Homer detailing the adventures of Odysseus (or Ulysses in Latin version) as he made his way home from Troy after the events described in The Iliad. The adventures involve mythical beasts and monsters.

Any kind of modern odyssey would therefore involve challenges and difficulties and a long journey and a quest of some kind. Quest books are like odysseys. Examples of these in modern Australian children's literature include the Rowan of Rin series and Deltora quest series of Emily Rodda and Victor's quest by Pamela Freeman and Kim Gamble, DragonQuest by Allan Baillie and Wayne Harris. Homecoming an award-winning US book by Cynthia Voigt is also a kind of odyssey without the monsters.

Ideas for displays
Make a 3D-display of a Greek Boat as described in The Literature Base, Volume 12, Issue 2 May 2001. P 24-26
Display books on the deck
Either 2001 shortlist books OR some of the many versions for children of The Odyssey * (A list of books about Odysseus can be found in The Literature Base) OR display modern quest stories.
Three-dimensional displays and places to go into or through are exciting for children visiting the library. A simple display representing travel could be a blow up boat or other small boat in the library filled with toys representing book characters e.g. Paddington, Winnie the Pooh etc.
If you have a small meeting room this could be decorated as a place to suit your version of the theme e.g with small tree lights to represent stars and with hanging cardboard or papier mache planets.
If you have lots of time and energy, a three dimensional paper mache mystical beast from a quest novel or The Odyssey could create interest.
Or a space ship could be constructed out of boxes etc. if you choose the space odyssey theme. These could also be done for 2-dimensional displays.
To capitalise on Harry Potter mania, The Hogwarts express using simple geometric shapes could be the basis of a simple 2D display involving journeys.
To create an activity for school classes visiting the public library a kind of quest could be organised around the library. Depending on your theme you could make small icons eg the Greek boat to indicate a place in the children's odyssey. They could be given a simple travel diary to complete activities found at each place around the library. These could be puzzles or rebus on the shortlist titles or you could separate questions and answers on the odyssey story and the children have to find them and put them together in their diaries.
Past editions of the Children's Book Week activities book published by the Rural Shires School Support Centre (PO Box 874 Ipswich 4305 ph 07 3202 3066 fx 027 3812 3128) contain activities based around some of the quest books:
Carnival of Books CBW 1994 - activities on Rowan of Rin page 22
Bookaleidoscope CBW 1997 - DragonQuest pages 36-38; Victor's Quest page. 48; Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal page 53.
The theme could be interpreted as a long odyssey of books from 1950 to 2001. Perhaps books could be chosen to be included in a display which were in themselves about journeys:
e.g. Dick Whittington and his cat by Marcia Brown 1950 (He went to London)
The Musicians of Bremen Paul Galdone 1968 (The animals went to Bremen)
Possum Magic Mem Fox 1983 (Grandma Poss and Hush went around Australia)
Alexander's Outing Pamela Allen 1992 (He went to the Botanical Gardens)
Our excursion Kate Walker 1994 (The class went to Sydney)
Highway Nadia Wheatley and Andrew McLean 1998 (A journey with dad in his truck).

Copyright permission

Each year the CYS committee seeks permission from the publishers to use the text and illustrations in the shortlisted books. The letter follows:

13 June 2001

The Editor
<<Company>>
<<Address1>>
<<Address2>>
<<City>> <<State>> <<Postcode>>

Dear Sir/Madam

Each year, in anticipation of Children's Book Week, the Children's and Youth Services (NSW) Group of the Australian Library and Information Association presents a 'Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza.' This year's event is on Friday 22 June at 6:00pm, at Burwood Council Chambers.

This event attracts teachers and librarians and includes ideas for activities and programs to promote the books which have been shortlisted for the Children's Book of the Year Award, in public libraries and school libraries.

These activities include:

Displays (using illustrations from the books or book jackets)
Readers Theatre
Storytelling
Crosswords and find-a-words
Competitions (colouring in, etc.)

We are seeking your permission to use the shortlisted titles published by your company in these ways during Children's Book Week.

Please respond to:

Mylee Joseph
fx 02 9413 2038
ph 02 9777 7900
mylee.joseph@willoughby.nsw.gov.au

Yours faithfully

Mylee Joseph
Convenor ALIA CYSS (NSW)

A a