What have you got planned for the Queen’s Birthday holiday?
After bejewelling our own royal crowns, we’ll be dressing up in majestic style for some special ‘Queen’s Birthday’ stories.
It’s the brief reference to Queen Elizabeth in this book that helps determine its place on our reading list for the Queen’s Birthday holiday.
What’s in a name? I personally love my given name but I rarely use it. I never refer to myself or introduce myself as Jaclyn. I find my nickname much more personable which probably explains why I’m unashamedly happy to play with other people’s names
I love shortening names and using nicknames. I use them as terms of endearment, but it very regularly gets me into trouble; usually with parents who chose their child’s name for a good reason. In My Name is Elizabeth, we meet a young girl who feels quite strongly about her actual name.
Young Elizabeth loves her name. She loves that it’s long, she loves that saying it does funny things to her mouth, and she loves that she shares her name with a queen.
BUT call her Lizzie, Liz, Beth or Betsy and you’re in for a rude surprise! Her actions certainly teach young readers how to be assertive stand up for themselves.
The story has an adorable ending and the illustrations are a delight. The pages are highlighted with backgrounds of duck-egg blue, and pops of orange feature upon predominantly black and white illustrations. These illustrations, along with speech bubbles, bring a little bit of jest to a very controversial topic.
This is such a cute and chic book which is sure to open up a can of worms about names.
Book details:
Author: Annika Dunklee
Illustrator: Matthew Forsythe
ISBN: 978-1921894077
Format: Hardback
Publisher : Little Hare (Hardie Grant Egmont), May 2012
RRP: $24.95 (aud)
Suitable for ages: 3+
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Even queens bear insecurities. They are people after all, and the queen in this story is no exception. That’s why The Queen with the Wobbly Bottom makes it on our Queen’s Birthday reading list.
The queen, although beautiful and clever, does not like her jelly-like bottom. Desperate to correct it, she puts out a public notice, with a reward attached, for someone to solve her wobbly problem.
Everyone comes knocking at her door: beauticians with cream, inventors with dewobbilisers, fitness instructors with fitness programs, tricksters with lotions, swindlers with potions, and quacks with pills of every colour. They all manage to fool her for thirty days each and when she discovers that her bottom is still wobbly after each experiment, she throws them all into the dungeon.
Finally, it is a poet who saves the queen from a wobbly button. Her wobbly bottom remains, but each day for thirty days the poet writes the queen a poem. He praises the queen in each of his poems. In the end, the queen feels so confident and loved that she no longer worries about her imperfection.
Don’t be fooled by the jovial text and Bruce Whately’s hilarious illustrations. Phillip Gwynne has some deep messages for each and every reader beneath the surface of this amusing story. The story teaches children to focus on their strengths, concentrate more on how you treat people rather than how you look, and worry only about the things you can change. This story teaches parents the almighty power of praise; that loving and praising our children each and every day will breed happy and confident human beings.
Book Details:
Author: Phillip Gwynne
Illustrator: Bruce Whately
ISBN: 978-1921714597
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Little Hare (Hardie Grant Egmont), April 2012
RRP: $24.95 (aud)
Suitable for ages: 4+
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