home > groups > cysnsw > book.week > 2003 > Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza 2002

ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW)

Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza 2003

Oceans of stories
16-22 August

The 2003 Pre-Bookweek Extravaganzas were amazing 'brainstorming' events, with lots of great ideas for using the shortlisted books for this year's Children's Book of the Year awards. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who attended both in Burwood and Wollongong and shared their inspiration. We owe a particular vote of thanks Colleen Langan for her marvellous storytelling presentations of 'Bear and Chook', 'Jethro Byrde fairy child' and 'Potato People'.
Dive into Children's Book Week 2003 for Oceans of stories!
The CYS(NSW) committee

Early childhood

The Potato People Pamela Allen (Penguin Books Australia)

Themes: family, grandparents, babysitting, time, days of the week, rainy days, loneliness, growing things, potatoes

Activities:

Make potato people
Make a circular 'life cycle of a potato' spinner
One potato, two potatoes rhyme

Guess the Baby Simon French and Illus. Rawlins, Donna (ABC Books)

Themes: babies, growing

Activities:

Have a guess the baby competition (staff or classes)
Make a list of animals and the names of their babies http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/animals/Animalbabies.shtml
Make a game of animal baby snap

Too Loud Lily Sofie Laguna and Illus. Kerry Argent (Omnibus Books)

Themes: families, noise, dancing, theatre, hippotamus

Activities:

Readers theatre of the story
Stomping dances (polka, latin American or African music?)
Read the story while the class make the noises
Play noise bingo (listening to a cassette and marking down each noise)

A Year on Our Farm Andrew McLean and Penny Matthews (Omnibus Books)

Themes: farm life, animals, seasons passing, calendar

Activities:

Make a calendar for the year's farming activities
Make a model farm (plastic farm animals and tractors etc.)
Play animal noise bingo
Make a display of outback photographs eg. http://www.outbackpics.com/

Bear and Chook Lisa Shanahan and Illus. Emma Quay (Hodder Headline Australia)

Themes: bear, chicken, careers, friendship, growing up, dressups, imagination

Activities:

Make a careers box with lots of different items of clothing representing each career - play it as a guessing game
Song: The bear went over the mountain..
Song: What shall we do when we all go out?

Playmates Jane Tanner (Penguin Books Australia)

Themes: toys

Activities:

Host a teddy bears picnic
Make a dolls hospital
Make teddy bear masks
A magic bag with soft toys ... 'abracadabra ... here is teddy' of course there would be lots of mixups with your magic until you did finally find teddy.

Picture Book of the Year:

NB: some of these books may be for mature readers

The Potato People Pamela Allen (Penguin Books Australia)

Themes: family, grandparents, babysitting, time, days of the week, rainy days, loneliness, growing things, potatoes

Activities:

Make potato people
Make a circular 'life cycle of a potato' spinner

Jethro Byrde, Fairy Child Bob Graham (Walker Books)

Themes: fairies, kindness, sharing, imagination

Activities:

Have a fairy picnic (with tiny muffins and fairy cakes and tea in a dolls tea set)
Add stickers of fairies to familiar scenes in magazine pictures (like the pictures of the Cottingley fairies) http://www.bjphoto.co.uk/millennium/fairies/fairies.shtml
A book talk in character: dress up as Jethro Byrde (jeans, baseball cap etc... plus wings), using parts of the text, give Jethro's account of his encounter with his gigantic human child friend Annabelle. Use props to indicate the differences in scale between the world of humans and fairies (eg. A miniature model van can be used to illustrate that 'to you humans, our van would look even smaller than this...' You might like to use music in your presentation (eg. A crazy Celtic reel as the music Jethro and his family produce at the tea part with Annabelle).
Song: Polly put the kettle on.

In Flanders Fields Brian Harrison-Lever and Norman Jorgensen (Fremantle Arts Centre Press)

Themes: war, sadness, suffering, trench warfare, kindness, remembrance, peace, friends and enemies

Activities:

Pretend to be a soldier writing letters home from the front
Make periscopes
Research the football match on Christmas Day 1914 at Normandy http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/christmas_1914_and_world_war_one.htm http://www.schooltimes.com/centurysample.pdf
Search the War Memorial photographic collection for photographs of the trenches http://www.awm.gov.au/
Make a display of poppies and crosses
Make crepe paper poppies http://www.dva.gov.au/commem/commac/studies/Lower_primary.pdf

Old Tom's Holiday Leigh Hobbs (ABC Books)

Themes: travel, packing, observation, cats, disguise

Activities:

Adapt the text for a short performance for two people: a narrator who reads from a script and Old Tom. Use props where appropriate (eg. Old Tom hopefully packing his holiday bag with some of his prized possessions, such as the ubiquitous fish skeleton!) You might like to experiment with movement and music (eg. A sequence where Angela is travelling and sightseeing, while Old Tom follows and mimics here every move.) Perhaps consider ending the sequence with a holiday-inspired conga line to appropriate music (eg. Madonna's 'Holiday'), led by a maraca-shaking Old Tom.
Pack a suitcase of things old Tom needed for his trip (disguises etc.) get the children to spot the items in use.
Hide pictures of Tom around the library and let the children find them in a scavenger hunt.
Make a papier mache model of Tom and use him in a display reclining on a deck chair

A year on our farm Andrew McLean and Penny Matthews (Omnibus Books)

Themes: farm life, animals, seasons passing, calendar

Activities:

Make a calendar for the year's farming activities
Make a model farm (plastic farm animals and tractors etc.)
Play animal noise bingo
Make a display of outback photographs eg. http://www.outbackpics.com/
Make a season clock from a paper plate (or a lifecycle clock)
Make a 3D farm using tissue boxes and cardboard cut-outs of animals
Choose one of the farmer's children and have a cardboard cutout with clothes for the different seasons. Ask the children to guess the seasons by the clothes.
Bring along some of the animals mentioned in the story eg. Cat, dog, chicken.
Get each student in the class to do a one minute list. In one minute they have to write down as many farm animals as they can think of (not just farm animals).
Have a set of large pictures of people, things and animals found in the story. You could play numerous games eg. Memory games.
Product game matching products with their animal sources (eg. Chicken and egg, sheep and jumpers).

Diary of a wombat Bruce Whatley and Jackie French (HarperCollinsPublishers Australia)

Themes: diaries, wombats, pets

Activities:

Make a large papier mache wombat to 'act out the story'
Write a diary from another animal's perspective (eg. Family pet, goldfish, farm animal, zoo animal, animal in the wild)

Younger readers

Rain May and Captain Daniel Catherine Bateson (University of Queensland Press)

Themes: sea change, country Victoria, parents, family relationships, poetry, Star Trek, bullying, self esteem.

Activities:

Make fridge poetry with class groups
Make fridge poetry pieces for a famous poem - mix them up and ask a class to make up their own poem using just those words.
Make postcards from characters in the book.
Give each student an A4 picture of a fridge and a set of words to cut out to make their own fridge poems.

Horrendo's curse Anna Fienberg (Allen and Unwin)

Themes: bullying, self esteem, pirates, language

Activities:

Read up to 'few boys ever did...' (p. 14) to the group. Discuss what it would be like to be a pirate. Discuss what it would be like to be a 12 year-old boy living in Horrendos village.
Make wanted posters for a pirate featured in Horrendo's curse.
Write a story, 'a day in the life of a pirate'.
Make pirate maps
All the characters are given nasty names - use a dictionary (and some imagination) to find meanings for the names: Blusta, Hoodlum, Rascal, Sneak, Tiger, Rip, Putrid, Horrendo, Bombastic, Rowdy, Mischief, Wildman.
Turn the names into games - memory, a rap, matching names and meanings.
The term 'widdershins' is used - get the students to invent their own definition then use a dictionary to find out the real meaning.
The characters are taught how to make insults - have a competition to make up the best insults and replies.
For more pirate ideas see 'The Literature Base' February 2003.
Make pirate's treasure chests from tissue boxes or shoe boxes
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/box/treasurechest/
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/dad/mtreasure.html
Pirate find-a-word based on the story.

Where in the World Simon French (Little Hare Books)

Themes: mountains, community, discovering talents, dealing with problems by planning, loss, grief, boys.

Activities:

Play an atlas game.

Tom Jones saves the world Steven Herrick (University of Queensland Press)

Themes: language, dictionaries, father, family relationships

Activities:

Give each group a piece of paper with a first line from one of Tom Jones' poems. The first person in the group writes a next line and folds the piece of paper over, each member of the group contributes a line. When the activity is completed, the paper unfolded a weird and wonderful poem emerges.
Read the following poems 'Thomas' (p.5), 'Dinner with Dad' (p.119) and 'Breakfast' (p.133) to introduce children to poetry.
Play a dictionary game (look up a word and write down it's meaning, everyone writes their own definition, then vote on the answers and keep score).

The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (Who planned to live an unusual life) Martine Murray (Allen and Unwin)

Themes: postcards, family relationships, living in the city, acrobatics

Activities:

Write cryptic postcards.
Compare the Acrobrats show to a video of Cirque du Soliel

The Barrumbi Kids Leonie Norrington (Omnibus Books)

Themes: outback, Northern Territory, cultures, friendship, Aboriginal people, school, bush tucker

Activities:

Use the glossary of Aboriginal words in the book to create a game matching the words to their meanings.
Put up a map of the Northern Territory.
Read pages 69-72 aloud - describing burning off around rainforest patches, then ask class to write instructions for doing something they know about.
Research bush tucker.

Older readers

Note: these books are for mature readers

The girl from the sea James Aldridge (Penguin Books Australia)

Themes: Lelee is wild, precocious and beautiful, Beau is a crippled, almost blind intelligent youth. Together the combined strengths of these two main characters meld to overcome their weaknesses.

Activities:

Think back to a golden summer holiday from your own life and write about what you experienced, felt and what made it so memorable.
Both Lelee and Beau have disabilities to overcome. Arrange for a talk/visit by someone who has a disability, and who has overcome it.
Experience what it would be like to be blind. Arrange for masks/blindfolds for half the group, the other half acts as guides. Form into pairs and try to find a book on the catalogue, locate it on the shelf, take it to the desk to borrow. Swap over and discuss how it is different to the sighted experience.

Painted love letters Catherine Bateson (University of Queensland Press)

The song of an innocent bystander Ian Bone (Penguin Books Australia)

Themes: The story of 19 year-old Freda and her parents as they struggle to live with the trauma of a nighmarish experience that occurred 10 years ago when they were held hostage in a fast food restaurant.

Activities:

Imagine you are one of the hostages trapped with Freda during the siege. You cannot know whether you will survive. You have only a few minutes to scrawl a message to someone you love, hoping your message will be found and delivered when the siege finally ends. What would you say? Write on paper napkins.
Create a collage (or other piece of art) that expresses how you imagine the hostage experience in 'The song of an innocent bystander'.

Walking Naked Alyssa Brugman (Allen and Unwin)

Njunjul the sun Meme McDonald and Boori Pryor (Allen and Unwin)

The Messenger Markus Zusak (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Eve Pownall Award for non-fiction

Awesome! Australian art for contemporary kids Laura Murray Cree

Themes: creativity, seeing the world through different eyes

Activities:

Use optical illusions to show how things aren't always what they seem.
Link with other stories eg. 'Lukes way of looking' by Nadia Wheatley
Make abstract masterpieces ... painting/drawing/sculpture.
Hold an art competition for local schools.
Show a photographic exhibition of local art works eg. Sculpture in parks.

The mighty Murray John Nicholson

Themes: Australian history, the environment, rivers

Activities:

Talk about the importance of rivers, not just as sources of water and food but also communications, transport, generating power, ecology, engineering, etc.
Display a map of the Murray River showing key places and places of historical interest
Display pictures of different types of boats that have plied the river (paddlesteamers, barges, etc.)
Play a magnetic fishing game

Black snake: the daring of Ned Kelly Carole Wilkinson

Themes: Bushrangers, theft, courage, Australiana

Display ideas:

Australian bush scene - e.g. potted native grasses, plants, river pebbles, bark chips. Could incorporate toy native animals and/or implements relating to Ned Kelly and bushrangers eg. handcuffs, ball and chain, Ned's armour etc.
Books and/or photocopied covers could be placed in this bush setting

Activities:

After introducing the book, two staff members to read the first person passages from the book. One person will read the positive stories (hero), one person will read the negative stories (villain). Debate whether Ned Kelly was a hero or villain.
Make wanted posters of Ned Kelly and his gang. Burn the edges.
Write 'hero or villain' mini essays.
Write letters to Ned in prison, to Ned's mother, to the editor.
There are many depictions of Ned Kelly in art and poetry, use these to inspire creativity.
Make masks.

Endangered! Rick Wilkinson

Themes: endangered species; Australian animals

Activities:

Display photographs and soft toys with facts - 'did you know?'
Make a hide and seek picture scene (like Narelle Oliver's 'Sand swimmers : the secret life of Australia's dead heart' or 'Hunt')
Make pictures or sculptures of Australian animals with natural materials.

Discover and learn about Australian forests and woodlands Pat Slater

Themes: Australiana, Animals

Activities:

Link with 'Endangered!' and 'Mighty Murray'.
Make the library into a forest with potted palms and ferns, add animal toys. Make a canopy lookout (eg. A platform a step up with a display board that's made to look like a forest canopy or woodland. An idea would be to use an enlarged photograph to view through binoculars.
Make a picture of a tree on A4 paper and make rainforest animal cut outs to place in pockets or under flats that represent their homes.
Rainforest mobiles.
Rainforest vine (made of crepe paper/rope) with paper cutouts of flowers, animals, butterflies, leaves attached.

Iron in the blood: convicts and commandants in Colonial Australia Alan Tucker

Themes: convicts, Australian history, crime and punishment

Activities:

Make a pillory from strong cardboard. Take photos of staff in the pillory.
Talk about methods of punishment and types of crimes (eg. Transportation for stealing)
Make plastic chain and papier mache ball chains for a chain gang. Link the students together and get them to try moving around as a group.
Design wanted posters.
Put paper bars on the windows.
Write letters from a convict to his family in England.
Make skeletons from pasta glued onto cardboard.

Display, song, storyteller, competition and game ideas

Displays:

Submarine (refrigerator box)
Treasure chest overflowing with treasures, including books, gold coins, pearls etc.
Pirate ships with book cover designs as sails
Old maps
Octopus holding books
Papier mache characters from the stories
Crepe paper seaweed
Port holes (paper plates and plastic)
'The fish with the deep sea smile' by Margaret Wise Brown in The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra (HW Wilson Co, 1987)
make up blue jelly in a large glass bowl. Allow jelly to partially set and put in plastic fish (or gummi fish). Allow to set completely and decorate the top wit little boats, jelly babies swimming etc.
Make fish from old CDS
Make a milk carton pirate ship http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/transportation/mmilk_carton_pirate_ship.htm
Make a pretend aquarium using a Styrofoam tray and cover with plastic wrap
Make ocean dioramas in shoe boxes
Make footprints and turn them into fish (draw on eyes, gills, fins etc.)
Make a whale mobile http://www.EnchantedLearning.com
Visit the Oceans of Stories: illustrations from Australian Children's Books exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney http://www.anmm.gov.au/tempex.htm

Song:

Book Week Oceans of stories song (on CD)
Shane Veitch
61 Parkside Drive, Dapto 2530
ph 02 4261 8683, mb 0414 225 501

Storyteller:
Colleen Langan
660 Budgong Road, Cambewarra 2540
ph 02 4446 0245 colleenla@bigpond.com

Competition ideas:

K-2

Draw a picture of your real or imaginary pet. (read Wombat's dairy first)
Draw yourself underwater reading (In a submarine, wearing scuba gear, as shark or mermaid or ?)

3-4

Design a new bookmobile for the library - one that can travel across the ocean
Make a diarama of an underwater scene
Illustrate a poem about the ocean (we would need to supply the poem)
You are part of a crew of pirates. You have a treasure chest hidden on an island - draw the map to find the treasure.

5-6

Write a diary entry from a trip at sea (suggestions: a pirate queen, Matthew Flinders cat Trim, on the Kontiki, in submarine, a convict in the First Fleet)
You are the cabin boy/girl for a pirate captain - write a page in your diary about your adventures.

Competitions to use in the library

Guess the animal babies - make up cards with the names of each animal, animal baby
Guess the baby (staff photos)
Online quizzes:
'Who wants to be a millionaire?' http://www.geocities.com/wgongwest/bwquiz2003.htm
Memory http://www.geocities.com/wgongwest/bw2003mem.htm
Oceans quiz (this could be used as a scavenger hunt via the library and the internet)

Oceans quiz

Name the five oceans of the world
What, where and how deep is the deepest spot in the oceans?
How is global warming affecting oceans?
What is the largest creature living in oceans?
Which ocean is on the east coast of Australia?
What percentage of the earth's surface is covered by oceans?
What was the name of the sailor put ashore on an island in 1704 and who lived there for five years? Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe is based on his adventures.
In H.Melville's epic tragedy Moby Dick what is the name of the sea-captain who is on a revenge quest for a great white whale which had bitten off his leg? Also, what was the name of his ship?
Name the flamboyant one-legged, anti-hero in the novel Treasure Island?
In Kidnapped by RL Stevenson, the young protagonist, David Balfour is kidnapped on a ship by his miserly,villainous uncle. What is the uncle's name?
Name the Roman god of the sea.
What ship of the White Star line sank after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912?
Who was the Portugese prince (1394-1460) who pioneered 50 naval expeditions to start the great age of ocean exploration?
Who was the Norwegian explorer in 1970 who sailed a reed boat from South America to the Polynesian islands?
Sandro Botticelli's (1445-1510) painting of the goddess of love being blown ashore in a seashell by the wind is called...?
Who painted 'The breaking wave of Kanagawa'?
What mythical creatures have a human torso and the tail of a fish?
In the North Atlantic Ocean is an area said to be jinxed because five US bombers went missing without trace in 1945. What is the name of this area?
'As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean' is a quote from which epic poem'?
Where was the ocean explorer Ferdinand Magellen killed in 1521?
Captain Cook's bark Endeavour was originally called what?
Devastating waves set off by undersea earthquakes are called...?
Name the 82-kilometre canal which separates the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean.
Name the sailing ship found crossing the Atlantic in 1872...the crew of ten had mysteriously disappeared.
What is the theme of this year's Book Week?
Nicole Kidman starred in the 1988 film about a couple who bring a dangerous stranger aboard their yacht. Name the movie.
Name the animated movie from Walt Disney about a mermaid (who longs to be human) falling in love with a prince.
In James Aldridge's novel The girl from the sea(from this year's short-list) one of the main characters is a nymph-like girl. What is her name?
Name the theme song from the movie Titanic
Who was the eighteen year-old Australian boy who became the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world in 1999?

Games to use in the library

Find Old Tom (lots of pictures of Old Tom hidden around the library)
Find the fairies (pictures hidden around the library)
Find the seahorses (pictures hidden around the library)
Animal snap
Beanbag throw Make a target out of plywood or cardboard for balls or little beanbags. Paint the board with an underwater design and cut out holes large enough for the beanbags to go through (eg. Submarine with portholes). Each player gets to throw three beanbags at the target. It's helpful to have at least two sets of beanbags on hand so one helper can chase bags while the other helper works with the next person in line. A variation of this is Shark Bait: Paint a shark on your backboard and have the players throw plastic fish into the shark's mouth.
On the Farm Ring Toss: Use farm animals as the targets.
Fishing game: a fishing rod with a magnet on the line and cardboard fish with paperclips on their noses)

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:

29 May 2003

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-Book Week extravaganza.' This event attracts children's librarians and teacher-librarians for a brainstorming session on ways to promote and enjoy the CBC shortlisted titles with children in libraries and schools.

This year the Children's and Youth Services (NSW) Group and Wollongong City Council are hosting two Extravaganzas:

Friday 20 June at 4:30pm at Burwood Council Chambers
Friday 27 June at 4:30pm at Corrimal District Library and Community Centre

These events includes ideas for:

Displays in the library
Readers Theatre - simple dramatization of a scene from a book
Storytelling
Cross words and find-a-words
Competitions (colouring in etc.)

We are seeking your permission to use the short listed titles published by your company in these ways during the Extravaganza and Children's Book Week. A representative from your company would be welcome to attend either of the Extravaganza events.

Please respond to:

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

Yours faithfully

Mylee Joseph
Convenor, CYS (NSW) Group ALIA

The publishers have asked libraries to credit each book used in the following style:

From My Dog written by John Heffernan, illustrated by Andrew McLean
Text copyright © John Heffernan, 2001
Illustrations copyright © Andrew McLean, 2001
First published by Margaret Hamilton Books, a division of Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd, 2001

Reproduced by permission of Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd

For more information on permission/conditions for specific titles please contact Mylee Joseph or the publisher's directly.

A a