Welcome to the blog of the Tasmanian branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia!

Sunday 21 May 2017

Hey Diddle Diddle, You All Know the Riddle - It’s Time for a Story!

It is Library & Information Week in Australia and a highlight of celebrations is the National Simultaneous Storytime event – get involved by visiting your local library on Wednesday or initiating a shared reading in your home, classroom or LIBRARY!
This Wednesday the 24th of May marks the 17th National Simultaneous Storytime Event, (NSS) run by ALIA (the Australian Library and Information Association). 
It is such a difficult task to choose a book that has appeal to a wide enough range of children to fit the bill for NSS, and we have seen some excellent choices in the past with Pete the Sheep, The Wrong Book, The Very Cranky Bear, The Brothers Quibble, Too Many Elephants in This House and I Got This Hat, all created by talented Aussies who are well known to the CBCA.

What a great moment it must be to find out your book has been chosen for this wonderful event!  This year that honour goes to Tony Wilson and Laura Wood for their witty picture book The Cow Tripped Over the Moon; a wonderful take on the back-story of the classic nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle.
This story was of course an honour book in last year’s CBCA Early Childhood Book of the Year Awards, and is a true celebration of resilience and the importance of having great supporters around you to achieve a dream.
The clever rhyming text makes Wilson’s book a fantastic choice for a read aloud as it flows so well, builds to an exciting climax and provides a satisfying conclusion despite the inevitability of the outcome!  Wood’s illustrations are just delightful in their comic additions to the story, providing much for the reader to enjoy. The Illustrator, Laura Wood, has shared some double page spreads on her website.
ALIA have put together a wonderful range of support materials to help engage children beyond the storytelling of the book, and again the fantastic team at Story Box Library have a brilliant rendition read by Eddie Perfect (Play School, Offspring).
Even if you can’t get to an NSS event on Wednesday, I encourage you to find some time this week to read this engaging tale aloud – even if it’s to the cat and the dog!  I’m sure they will think it such sport!
Jessica Marston
(Teacher Librarian - Hagley Farm School (K-6), mum, advocate of the power of reading aloud).
Twitter: @marston_jessica

No comments:

Post a Comment