Yet again, I love the CBCA’s theme for this year’S Book Week. ‘Escape to Everywhere’ encourages creativity, imagination and travelling from the comfort of your armchair.

Now, you can’t travel without a passport, can you? So, make sure your children are prepared with a passport in hand, ready to jump into the pages of the books they read during Book Week 2017.

I apologise that I don’t have a printable for you this year. We are in the midst of a move. Most of our belongings are packed away in storage boxes and computers and printers are out of order. You’ll notice that our own Book Week 2017 passports are a little makeshift. In all honesty, kids don’t mind though, especially because they’ll love creating their own passports.

What you need:

• A4 paper
• Coloured paper or card stock (or coloured manila folders)
• Scissors
• Staples
• Drawing and writing materials
• Stamp and inkpad
• Lots of books to read

How to create your Book Week Passport:

1. Fold your white A4 paper in half horizontally and vertically

2. Cut the folds to create a mini booklet

3. Cut the coloured paper/cardstock to create a cover for your booklet

4. Place the white paper pages inside the coloured cover and staple in place

5. Add a title and decorate the cover of your passport

6. Write prompts on each of the inside pages of your passport

• Title:
• Author:
• Illustrator:
• Destination:
• Form of transport:
• Travel notes:
• Plus leave a place for a visual note (illustration)

7. Escape to Everywhere by reading as many books as you can throughout Book Week and record your thoughts about your books and travels on the pages of your passport ( e.g. What you saw, what you learned, your favourite part etc.)

8. Have Mum, Dad or your teacher stamp each page of your passport to validate each of your bookish travels.

Going further:

a) Be inspired by Crichton Award winning book, The Patchwork Bike, and create your own form of transport from recycled or unused items from around your home. Get cosy inside your ‘patchwork’ vehicle to help you travel through the pages of the books you read.

b) Create your own escape space within your home or classroom, somewhere you can hide away and read.

Usually we go to a great deal of effort to prepare our Advent Calendar each year. Sadly, we’ve been so incredibly busy this term that December has crept up on us.

As books have always played an important role in our countdown to Christmas (check out our past calendars here), Cammy was literally begging me to unpack our Christmas books last night.  I realised then that we had run out of time to wrap our Christmas books for this year.  So under immense pressure to pull something together in a day, I decided to combine our love of Christmas books and scavenger hunts to create our Christmas Reading Advent Calendar for 2016.

I’ve created a collection of 24 Christmas book scavenger hunt prompts, each encouraging children to search their collection of Christmas books to find books with particular themes, characters, settings, messages or features.

How to use the cards:

a) Simply print and cut the cards; Place them in a box, jar or basket; Then randomly select a card each day of Advent to help you choose which book to read each day in the lead-up to Christmas.

OR

b) Print and cut the cards; Place each card inside a numbered envelope (ranging from 1-24); Attach and display the envelopes along a piece of string; Then open the relevant envelope each day to reveal a card and book prompt for each day of Advent (you could pop a little treat inside each envelope too, but it’s not necessary).

Below is a ‘work in progress’ image of our Christmas Reading Advent Calendar, which we’ve begun to set up above our fireplace this year.

IF YOU LOVE THIS IDEA, CHECK OUT OUR WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF BOOKISH CHRISTMAS IDEAS.

I received a beautiful piece of book jewellery from Cammy this Mother’s Day. It’s the first bookmark I’ve ever truly used properly (I usually ditch them for dog-earring pages- oops!).

I spotted this book and bookmark beside me as I was brainstorming ideas for Book Week 2016, with this year’s theme being Australia! Story Country. With a little twist, I thought we could easily create a kid-friendly version and use the charms to give it an Australian flavour- perfect for the 2016 Book Week theme.

The result- Australia! Story Country-themed Bookmarks- I’m sure you’ll agree are absolutely stunning, and a fantastic Book Week activity for classrooms or home in 2016.

What you need:

• Cross-stitching thread (or wool) in Indigenous colours (black, red and yellow), Aussie Olympic colours (green and gold) or Australian flag colours (red, blue and white)
• Scissors
• Australia-themed charms (we found goannas, thongs, shells and dolphins at Lincraft)

How to make Australia! Story Country-themed Bookmarks

1. Cut your thread (or wool) into 40cm lengths.

2. Line the various coloured threads alongside each other and secure them together with a knot.

3. Sticky tape the end of the threads to a table or ask a friend to hold the end of the threads.

4. Plait the threads together (younger children might find it easier to twirl two pieces of thread).

5. Secure the plait by tying another knot at the end of the thread lengths.

6. Tie charms to each end of the plait.

Voila! You should have an impressive bookmark to keep your place while reading your favourite Australian stories

How to use:

There are no rules to the game. You can use the free printable in any way that you like. For example:

• Ask children to find books based on the prompts given, and write the titles on the Book Scavenger Hunt sheet.

• Arm pre-writers with a camera and ask them to take photos of book covers they find with your help.

• Use a stopwatch to time how long it takes for children to complete the Book Scavenger Hunt.

• Ask children to create their own book scavenger hunt.

HAVE A GREAT BOOK WEEK 2016

We’re quite lucky to have Oliver visit My Little Bookcase today to share the inspiration and research behind the story of his latest book, The Other Christy (perfect for girls in middle and upper primary).

You’ve got a Friend in Me- guest post by Oliver Phommavanh.

In my latest book, The Other Christy, I drew on my personal experiences as a teacher. I had classes with kids with the same name. Every class had its different way of telling the two or three kids apart, whether by using their surnames like Julie B and Julie W, or by variations of their names, Matty and Matthew. In one particular class, the two girls couldn’t be further apart. One was loud and hogged the spotlight with her presence. The other girl was just that…the other one; The shy girl who only said something when I marked the roll. She was a bright girl, but she just couldn’t come out of her shell. She wanted more than anything to have a friend and be heard.

The two girls never became friends in my class. But in my head I kept thinking what if?…what if two girls with the same name become unlikely friends? It follows a similar trend in my books, where two characters worlds apart, come together. In Con-nerd, Connor is a nerd who befriends a cool troublemaker kid. I’m fascinated by these friendships because it’s a reflection of what I see in the playground. For every conventional friendship brought together with a common interest like sport, there are friendships that are formed through circumstances, like being forced to do a project together.

All my books have themes of friendship. It’s funny that friendship is an actual theme but I don’t mind the tag. Friendships are family you can choose. It’s a ripe area for drama and laughs. One of my favourite books of all time is Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley. I thought it perfectly captured the dynamics of friendships, especially ones between girls. Erica Yurken and Alison Ashley started off as rivals and ended up friends. Erica never saw it coming. Christy Ung would never have thought she could be friends with her enemy, but she gives Christie a chance and lets her guard down.

Christie Owens is a queen bee in class, but her besties become beasties and she’s left on the outer. I’ve seen friendships and groups form, break and make up over the course of a year. Nobody stays popular forever. Kids change. It all makes for interesting and funny stories.

More recently, I’ve enjoyed Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Friendship Matchmaker series. In these books, Lara spends her time matching kids together at school, but she doesn’t really have a friend herself. Abdel-Fattah nails the playground politics that go on at school, and I found myself nodding at those awkward moments kids have when they first meet new people.

Friendship books are not meant to show kids how to make friends. It’s not as easy as kids just having to be nice to make friends. If anything, it’s more like being yourself and finding your tribe. Even so, I think when kids read these kinds of books, they will relate to the characters without thinking too hard about any morals. It will come to them in a different way when they reflect on the story. I think about all the friends I’ve made at school, and they were more than just being stuck together in a class. The friendships that are genuine and enduring have a quality that is more than just common interests. It’s a bond and it’s something that I try to capture myself when I write my stories.

Book Details:

Title: The Other Christy

Author: Oliver Phommavanh

ISBN: 9780143505723

Publisher: Penguin Australia, June 2016

RRP: $16.99

Look out for these other titles:

Click the book covers to visit The Kids’ Bookshop for more details on these books by or recommended by Oliver:

I realised when sharing this book on Instagram for a #picturebookchallenge, that I never got around to officially reviewing Hannah’s Night on the blog- even though it is one of our family’s most treasured picture books.

Devastated and disappointed in myself, I set to rectifying the error of my ways…and thus, here you have my first book review in 7 months.

Hannah’s Night was originally published in Japan in 2012 and this English language edition was published by Gecko Press in 2013. I suspect there are many reasons that this book tugs at my heart strings, with my soft spot for Japan possibly playing a part.

On first glance, it is easy to fall in love with the rich, textured illustrations in warm blues and gentle pastels. Komako Sakai’s use of acrylic layers makes you feel as though you are secretly observing Hannah through a sheer veil- effectively portraying a moonlit setting.

Yes, the illustrations are truly exquisite but the story is also cleverly simple, tender and universal. Hannah, an adorable and familiar toddler, wakes in the night to find her family still sleeping. Hannah soon discovers she can raid the fridge and play with her sister’s doll, music box and pencils without being reprimanded.

I once told Cammy that as a child, planning a midnight feast was one of my favourite things to do when sleeping over at my friend’s house. She has been fascinated by these midnight escapades ever since, but as a first-born child she didn’t quite have the courage to plan one for herself. As such, Cammy quite enjoys reading about the nerve of Hannah to explore the fridge and her sister’s belongings without permission in the middle of the night.

As a first-born myself, I empathise with Hannah’s older sister and her need to protect her belongings. But Ike has taught me to sympathise with the plight of little brothers and sisters, in which they must obey the rules of their big sibling or endure the wrath if they dare break them.  For little brothers and sisters it is only in the secrecy of the night that one could get away with such antics as Hannah’s…and her quiet giggles clearly demonstrate that such freedom brings pure and  innocent joy for  little siblings.

And at the end of the night, Komako Sakai leaves us with an image of Hannah snuggled and fast asleep on the edge of her big sister’s bed- a true symbol of the very special and close, if not complicated, relationship that exists between siblings.

Hannah’s Night is beautiful in every way, and a treasure for every family member to enjoy.

Book Details

Title: Hannah’s Night

Author/Illustrator: Komako Sakai

Publisher: Gecko Press, 2013

ISBN: 9781877579554

RRP: $16.99

BOOK AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE VIA THE KIDS’ BOOKSHOP