ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW)

Pre Book Week Extravaganza 2007

READiscover!
18th - 24th August

The 2007 Pre-Bookweek Extravaganza featured a new venue as we were hosted by the Marrickville Library Service in Marrickville Town Hall. The event 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 the wonderful Sutherland Shire Library & Information Service storytellers who inspired us all.

Enjoy Book Week 2007!
The CYS(NSW) committee

Early childhood | Picture book of the year | Younger readers | Older readers | Eve Pownall Award for non-fiction | Competitions | Theme ideas | Copyright permission | Links and other resources

Travelling story linking all short listed early childhood picture book titles together [contact Sutherland Shire Libraries 02) 9710 0218 for script]

Display / competition ideas:
Colouring/puzzle competitions - Chatterbox, Eight or Ella Kazoo
Create a memory game with large numbered cards in pockets on a plastic sheet. On the back of each card is the cover of one of the books, with a matching pair. The children try to find matching pairs using their memory.

Pamela Allen
Grandpa and Thomas and the green umbrella
Viking, Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

Themes: beach, grandfathers, weather, storms, umbrellas

Activities:
Create a beach scene with a huge green umbrella, a purple blanket, a bucket & spade - with lots of seagulls flying around.
Guessing competition - guess the seashells in the jar
Sand tray - making sand castles
Author profile

Meredith Costain and Pamela Allen (illus.) Doodledum dancing Viking, Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

Themes: dancing, poetry

Activities:
Dance to suitable music [eg. "Popcorn", "Pink Panther", "Baby Elephant Walk" etc]
Dance, Dance Revolution style competition
Dance steps marked on the floor
Make a frieze of funny 'Dancing legs' for 'Doodledum dancing'

Lee Fox and Cathy Wilcox (illus.)
Ella Kazoo will not brush her hair
Lothian Books, 2006

Themes: hair, grooming, rhyme

Links / Activities:
Teachers notes Get a few cheap curly, messy, stragglely wigs of differing colours and stick them onto cardboard faces. Add a few cardboard combs & brushes just for fun! Act out the story [contact Sutherland Shire Libraries 02) 9710 0218 for script] Make a wig with long paper curls

Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood (illus.)
Amy & Louis
Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia, 2006

Themes: moving, friendship, emotions, loneliness, playing

Links / Activities:
Libby Gleeson's website Make a frieze / poster of two cities on either side of a curved world globe, with an expanse of water between - then a HUGE Coooeeeeee! curving across from one city to the next !

Lyn Lee and Kim Gamble (illus.) Eight Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia, 2006

Themes: octopus, toys, resourcefulness, lost and found, imagination

Activities:
Create an enormous Octopus with EIGHT 'reading arms with books' hanging from the ceiling or down a wall.
Share Ogden Nash's poem "The Octopus"
Hold a guess the legs competition

Margaret Wild and Deborah Niland (illus.)
Chatterbox
Viking, Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

Themes:
Links / Activities:
Bubble-blowing competition - provide bubble-blowing kit get older kids to BLOW the biggest bubble - the winner could win a bubble kit. Make a papier-mache 'Chatterbox' with her mouth open!

Get a few cheap curly, messy, straggly wigs of differing colours and stick them onto cardboard faces. Add a few cardboard combs & brushes just for fun! Act out the story [contact Sutherland Shire Libraries 02) 9710 0218 for script]

Picture Book of the Year

Note: Some of these picture books may be for mature readers. (Arranged by illustrator)

Online jigsaws

Chris McKimmie
Brian Banana Duck Sunshine Yellow
Allen & Unwin, 2006

Themes: search for identify, ducks, yellow, big things, grandparents, belonging, imagination, family

Links:
Teachers notes
Australian Big Things
Mighty Ducks at Anaheim US

Activities:
Yellow songs 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon', 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Mellow Yellow'.

Narelle Oliver Home Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia, 2006

Themes: peregrine falcons, wildlife in the city, habitat

Links:
Author profile

Jan Ormerod,
Water Witcher
Little Hare Books, 2006

Themes: water divining, drought, divining rods, dowsing

Links:
History of water divining in South Australia
http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/factsheets/pdf/water/w16.pdf
Dowsing (Wikipedia)

Sally Rippin and David Metzenthen (text)
The Rainbirds
Lothian Books, 2006

Themes: seasons, environment, family ritual, conservation, environmental protection, cities, water, seeds

Links:
Sally Rippin's website
Birds in backyards - bird finder

Anne Spudvilas and Margaret Wild (text)
Woolvs in the sitee
Viking, Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

Themes: loneliness, fear, post apocalyptic world, language, shadows, place in society, homelessness, anarchy

Links:
Teachers notes

Activities:
Graffiti art / tagging / 'legal walls'

Shaun Tan The Arrival Lothian Books, 2006

Themes: journeys, refugees, immigration, travel, fits with HSC "journeys" topics

Links:
Shaun Tan's website
SMH review
Immigration museum (VIC)

Readers Theatre focussing on the single parent families and characters in the shortlisted stories. SCRIPT [ PDF 64KB ]

Catherine Bateson
Being Bee
(Young Adult Fiction) University of Queensland Press, 2006

Themes: belonging, change, step-parents, trust, intellectual disability

Pat Flynn and Tom Jellett (illus.)
The tuckshop kid
(Young Adult Fiction) University of Queensland Press, 2006

Themes: school, food, childhood obesity, health, bullying, friendship, self-perception

Links / Activities:
Teachers notes
Healthy and Active Kids

Jackie French
Macbeth and son
Angus&Robertson, HarperCollinsPublishers Australia, 2006

Themes: MacBeth, dreams, historical fiction

Links / Activities: Teaching notes

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (illus.)
The cat on the mat is flat
Pan Macmillan Australia, 2006

Themes: humour, nonsense verse, poetry

Links / Activities:
Compare to Dr Seuss books eg. Green Eggs and Ham A conversation between Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, CBCA Conference, Sydney May 2006

Sofie Laguna
Bird & Sugar Boy
Penguin Group (Australia), 2006

Themes: single parents, father - son relationships, grief, loneliness, moving

Links / Activities:
Teachers notes

Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (illus.)
Layla, Queen of hearts
ABC Books, 2006

Themes: sequel to The Naming of Tishkin Silk, friendship, aged care, senior citizens

Links / Activities: Booktalk

Older Readers

(NB: These books are for mature readers)

Display: make an interactive display with the covers of the books and the first lines - see if the students can match them up. [ PDF 28KB]
The cover artwork for three of the books: The Red Shoe, Red Spikes and My Big Birkett is by the same artist.

Victor Davidson's blog: http://knowingstoriesbghs.wordpress.com

Bauer, Michael Gerard
Don't call me Ishmael!
Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia, 2006

Themes: bullying, self esteem, relationships, courage, public speaking, respect, values.

Activities:
Chapter headings significance - pictorial title page for each of the chapters
Mind maps - themes of the novel
Designing front and back covers
Review of novel in the form of TV interview - mimic book shows and interviewers - empathy with composer

Clarke, Judith
One whole and perfect day
Allen & Unwin, 2006

Themes: family, relationships, love

Activities: Interview with a book (Margaret Redrup-May) Interview script[ PDF 64KB]

Cornish, D. M.
Monster blood tattoo book 1: Foundling
Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia, 2006

Themes: tattoos, monsters, courage, voyages and travels, orphans

Links / Activities:
Henna tattoing (Mehndi)
Monster blood tattoo blog
Monster blood tattoo website
Monster blood tattoo (Wikipedia)

Dubosarsky, Ursula
The red shoe
Allen & Unwin, 2006

Themes: Easter & the Show, siblings, Petrov Affair, World War II and its aftermath, mental illness, the beach, spies

Links / Activities:
The Petrov Affair
A living book - invite someone to come and talk about their experiences and memories from 1954.

Lanagan, Margo
Red spikes
Allen & Unwin, 2006

Themes: short stories, known and unknown, the real and the supernatural

Shanahan, Lisa
My big birkett
Allen & Unwin, 2006
Themes: Birds, origami, relationships, the school play, the river, rich vs. poor, wedding culture.

Links / Activities:
Display featuring origami birds
Napkin folding
Discussion about experiences throwing big birketts

NOTE: Some of these books may be for mature readers

Leon Davidson
Red haze: Australians & New Zealanders in Vietnam
Black Dog Books, 2006

Themes: Vietnam war, conflict, Australian involvement in war, veterans, different perspectives of history

Websites:
Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia
Australian War memorial
New Zealand and the Vietnam War
New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War
Teachers notes [Black Dog Books]
Songs of protest: the Vietnam Songbook
Music of the Vietnam Era: A Scavenger Hunt

Activities:
Give out a copy of the nine Rules for Australian Army Forces in Vietnam from the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia
Create a Vietnam War Internet webquest [possibly from perspectives of different participants eg. (e.g., soldier, nurse, doctor, photojournalist, TV reporter) Or with a class group ask them to create their own. http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=821

Play Vietnam war protest songs VS songs written after the war describing the experiences of Vietnam Vets

• "Give peace a chance" JOHN LENNON (1969): It was the height of the Vietnam war, and this song became an anthem of the peace movement that summer. It has lived on since then during peace movements all over the world.
• "Eve of Destruction" BARRY MCGUIRE (1965): The song is a warning of imminent apocalypse. It expressed the frustrations and fears of young people in the age of the Cold War, Vietnam, the nuclear arms race, and the civil rights movement.
• "Born in the USA" Bruce Springstein (1984)
• "I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green)" Redgum (1983): The song is an account of a typical Australian soldier's experience in the Vietnam War, from training to military operations and combat, and ultimately his return home disillusioned, psychologically scarred and possibly suffering from the effects of agent orange.
• "Khe Sanh" COLD CHISEL (1978)
• "I Have Seen the Rain" PINK (2006): This appears as a hidden track on I'm Not Dead. It's a duet between Pink and her father, James T. Moore. Her father wrote it while serving in Vietnam. As a child, Pink used to accompany her father to Veterans' centres and sing it with him - it was the first song she ever learned, ever performed and is, in fact, how she learned to sing. It's a tribute to her father and to war veterans everywhere.

Corinne Fenton and Peter Gouldthorpe (illus.)
Queenie: one elephant's story
Black Dog Books, 2006

Themes: zoos, elephants, Melbourne Zoo, animals in captivity, bullying, conservation

Activities:

Create a virtual scavenger hunt through websites for Australian zoos

• Taronga and Western Plains Zoos
• Melbourne Zoo
• Australia Zoo
• Perth Zoo
• Adelaide Zoo

Debate topic: That wild animals should not be kept in zoos.

Roleplaying:

Oxfam Bullying Online Resource

Talk Show: Give animal puppets to 3 - 4 students and get them to play the parts of animals from the zoo appearing on a talk show talking about how they feel about the bullying and the tragedy with Queenie. Draw inspiration from Oprah, Andrew Denton, or Jerry Springer!

Make a poster about how bullying makes you feel.

Share the Rudyard Kipling stories "The elephant's child" and "How the elephant got it's trunk".

Links:

Queenie the elephant
Wikipedia
Teachers notes
Bullying animals
RSPCA kids Pet care tips
Wild animals in captivity

Talking points:

- The fate of the animals in the Baghdad Zoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_zoo

Lawrence Anthony, tells his story in "Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo". As he watched the war news on TV, he recalled tragic stories of other zoos in such war zones as Afghanistan, Kosovo and Kuwait. To help Baghdad's zoo avoid the same fate, he embarked on a one-man rescue mission to Iraq. When he got to Baghdad shortly after U.S. forces took the city, the damage to the zoo was already extensive. Of the 650 animals in the zoo before the war, only 30 were left. U.S. soldiers and a skeleton zoo staff were feeding the living animals the carcasses of those that had died during the fighting. One giraffe had been eaten and another had been stolen by exotic-animal smugglers.

Scott Hocknull and Alex Cook Amazing facts about Australian dinosaurs Steve Parish Publishing, 2006

Themes: dinosaurs, Australian pre-history

Activities:

Divide the class into five categories (like the dinosaurs) - then announce that they are the:

• biggest
• nastiest
• smallest
• loudest
• fastest

Rotate the groups through the five dinotasks:

• Find two dinosaur jokes in a joke book
• Research three facts about a dinosaur
• Mark the sites on a map of Australia where dinosaurs have been found
• Name three dinosaurs that lived in the ocean
• List three facts about flying dinosaurs

Create your own dinosaur / make up your own dinosaur names [could a Thorposaurus swim very fast?]
Identifying dinosaurs from footprints [eg. Dinosaur Locomotion - Enchanted Learning http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/anatomy/Locomotion.shtml;
Footprints help solve dinosaur mysteries
Make dinosaur dioramas

Links:

Walking with dinosaurs - Australian dinosaurs
Australian dinosaur story
Lark Quarry resources and
stampede fact sheet

Kathy Hoopmann
All cats have Asperger Syndrome
Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006

Themes: cats, Asperger Syndrome, behaviour, difference, feelings

Activities:

• Using photographs / clip art images of animals ask the students to write about the animals feelings. Link to the feelings of Queenie the elephant when she was being teased by the children.
• Compare to the The Blue Day Book for Kids: A Lesson in Cheering Yourself Up By Bradley Trevor Greive
• Try matching words describing feelings to pictures of animals or people eg. http://www.celt.edu.gr/mood%20faces.jpg
• Make giant 'magnifying glasses' with coloured cellophane and try looking at the world 'differently'.

Links:

- Find out more about Asperger Syndrome from this age appropriate website for children: http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=287&id=2339

Norman, Mark
The penguin book: birds in suits
Black Dog Books, 2006

Themes: penguins, endangered species, predators

Activities:

• Who am I? I have 17 different species. I have bad hair days every year when my feathers moult. I can see perfectly on land and underwater.
• Penguin skit Penguin skit [ 48KB PDF]
• Penguin egg race: Use a plastic egg or an egg made of rolled up socks. Divide the children evenly into teams. Provide one "egg" to each team. The players will place the "egg" at their feet and "scoot" along to a designated spot and then return the egg to the next player.
  Source: http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/party-happy-feet-birthday.htm
• Snowball relay: Play this game as you would any relay race. Divide into teams. Each player takes turns putting on mittens and balancing a "snowball" on a spoon while racing to the other side of the room. Drop the snowball into a bucket, return to the team, pass the mittens and go to the back of the line. First team to complete the race wins!
  Source: http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/party-happy-feet-birthday.htm
• Using a map of the world ask students to mark the places where penguins live with pins.
• Have a scavenger hunt through the library looking for pictures of the 17 different species of penguins. Penguin hunt [ PDF 44KB ]
• Dress staff up in black and white (penguin style)
• Distribute penguin sunvisors and take the class on a penguin tour of the library (walking penguin style, flapping their flippers!) [ visor pattern ]

Links:

Penguins around the world
Penguin cam
The world of penguins
Phillip Island Nature Park (fairy penguins)

Tonkin, Rachel
Leaf litter
Angus&Robertson, HarperCollinsPublishers Australia, 2006

Themes: seasons, animals feeding, insects, fungi and plants, life cycle, food chain,

Activities:

Find the items hidden in the pictures http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0207198225&tc=bd

Create a leaf litter box / display with words from the book written on paper leaves Make bush sculptures from found items Make paper plate dioramas of leaf litter (paper plate base with leaves etc. and an inverted paper plate lid with the centre cut out and clear plastic taped across the opening) Contact Council's environmental education officer - they may be able to do a storytime.

Links:

Teaching notes http://www.harpercollins.com.au/pdf/leaflitter/teaching_notes_leaf_litter_0207198225.pdf

• Recreate old CDROMs into something else.
• Place hands inside a feely box - containing clues linking to the stories
• Colouring competitions
• Passports to libraries [eg. branch libraries in a network]

The READiscover theme can be interpreted in many different ways: Detectives, sleuthing, historians, explorers, other worlds (eg. science fiction / fantasy worlds), Why is it so? (eg. Pourquoi stories), Create windows onto other worlds [inspired by the Colin Thompson CBCA poster for book week]

Some examples:

READiscover - the jungle: Decorate the library as a jungle; tiger paw prints through the library to 'track'

READiscover - tribal living: Henna tattooing; drumming workshops; making dreamcatchers

READiscover - history

READiscover - yourself
Question marks cut from polystyrene, painted and hung from the ceiling

READiscover - fairytales: Fractured fairytales Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes; Jon Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

READiscover - classics: Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory (chocolate workshop); New stories inspired by pictures from old books

READiscover - space / Space station theme

READiscover - detectives Paperplate decoder
Decoder ring
Murder mystery programs [suitable for teens]
Use gift wrap tubes, cardboard rings, and plastic to make giant magnifying glasses and hang them from the ceiling.

READiscover - Your Library
Decorate with lift the flap question and answer cards (ie. What will a mouse ask for if you give him a cookie - A glass of milk). Many of the answers give information on where you can find a book or subject in the library.

READiscover - Rhythm, Rhyme and Rap

READiscover - the World Around You

Activity ideas:

• treasure hunts
• disguises
• scavenger hunts (internet or live),
• discovery/feely box
• what's wrong with this picture?
• Secret Codes: Braille, Morse, Pig Latin, American Sign Language, semaphore, rebuses, secret languages such as hash house or diner slang, backwards writing, numbers = letters, code words, block ciphers
• ALA posters: create READ posters featuring library staff dressed up as historic / explorer figures
• Invisible Ink
• Giant Maze using blue painter's masking tape and written clues
• Crossword puzzles
• Make your own ending / choose your own adventure...
• Discover the answer - Jokes, guessing games, riddles
• Discover - Mysteries from the past eg. Egyptology: mummies, pyramids, sphinx; Lost Civilizations: Mayan, Etruscans, Vikings, etc.; Mysterious places: Stonehenge Stonehenge, Bermuda Triangle, Crop circles; Archeologist/Fossils/ dinosaurs
• Pourquoi stories: how giraffe got long neck, why does a camel have a hump? etc.
• Discover - optical illusions
• Where in the world is...? (Geo mysteries, discovering places in your community, state, etc.)
• Jolly Postman's letters style activity
• Message hidden in an eye chart
• Read a map [historic maps used by explorers?

Websites:

Mysteries by Topic: A varied compendium of all things mystery http://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/booksf/mystery/topic.html

Each year the ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW) Group seeks copyright permission from each publisher:

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 short-listed titles with children in libraries and schools. This year the Children's and Youth Services (NSW) Group is hosting the Pre-Book Week Extravaganza on xxx at xxx.

These events includes ideas for:

• Displays in the library
• Readers theatre - simple dramatised reading 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, crediting the author and publisher. A representative from your company would be welcome to attend the Extravaganza.

Yours sincerely,

Please ensure credit is given to the authors, illustrators and publisher as shown below;

From Mutt dog! by Stephen Michael King
Text and illustrations copyright Stephen Michael King 2004
Published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited 2004
Reproduced by permission of Scholastic Australia Pty Limited

Shortcuts to the shortlist (Student learning activities based on the 2007 CBCA shortlisted books)
http://www.bookedout.com.au/uploads/shortcuts%20order%20form%20web.pdf

Ipswich District Teacher-Librarian Network - Children's Book Week 2007

Focus on Fiction [WA Dept of Education and Training]

Children's Book Council of Australia

READiscover 2007: Children's Book Week Ideas Book by Children's Book Council of Australia (WA Branch)

READiscover Book Week 2007 in The Literature Base, Volume 18, Issue 2, May 2007, pp 20-31 http://www.magpies.net.au/magpies/public/?MIval=m_pages&pagename=SAOI

Inside the shortlist [Teacher Notes from CBCA QLD]