Reading Aloud? - Yes Please!

The bedtime story routine in our house is the highlight of my day and is so important to my children, aged 7 and 9, that there are genuine tears of disappointment from my youngest if we ever need to skip story time! I have a very strong conviction in the importance of reading aloud to children and find it devastating to read of studies that show that in most cases once children hit the age of 7 or are able to “read by themselves” parents stop reading to them.

I have heard parents claim that their children don’t want to be read to anymore and I do understand this, but I feel that it is up to the adult to make changes to the read aloud experiences offered to keep the children interested and stimulated.  As brilliant children’s book blogger Megan Daley says, “reading to children should be about fun, the magic of story and the love of gorgeous books.”  Megan’s blog post Raising a Reader is well worth checking out particularly for her Top 10 Tips For Raising a Reader.

That said, families are busy, children are tired or glued to a device and time for reading together can be hard to find.

In my role as a K-6 teacher-librarian I frequently hear a good number of children, even those who are younger than 7, tell me that no-one at home reads with them.  This breaks my heart and drives me to provide rich and varied read aloud experiences within my library program.

I pride myself on choosing stories to share that are relevant to the curriculum and other aspects of day to day life for my students, and in sharing them in meaningful ways by using voice and gesture to effect, by creating stimulating displays that link with the read-aloud, by using props such as puppets where fitting, and by providing an engaging follow up activity that extends the story experience. However, is one voice, no matter how varied I can make it, enough?  Perhaps it is, but I choose to provide a wider range of listening experiences for my students.

In August 2013 I stumbled upon a test site for a new Australian website, devoted to sharing quality children’s literature.  I quickly fell in love and pledged my support to this crowd-funded start-up venture.  Since then Story Box Library has become a staple part of my library program, enabling me to share truly amazing read alouds with my students.  As stated on their website “Story Box Library provides a vibrant, interactive experience via a diverse range of everyday Australian storytellers - sportspeople, musicians, grandparents, teenagers, comedians, actors, with varying accents and from different cultures - each sharing past and present book titles. The result is meaningful, entertaining readings that focus on both teller and tale.”  I can fully endorse this statement as I see my students at school, and my children at home, totally absorbed with the Story Box Library offerings and always imploring me to “play it again”.

If you engage with children regularly – at home or at school – then I highly recommend that you consider a subscription to this wonderful platform.  With over seventy stories now available, and regular updates to the collection Story Box Library enriches the read aloud experience in homes and schools.

Reading aloud? – Yes please!  What are your best tips to keep families reading aloud and enjoying books together? 

Jessica Marston, Parent & Teacher Librarian, Hagley Farm School

Editor's note. If you would like some guidance on reading to your children visit the CBCA Tas website and the tab for Guides to Parents.
All images used with permission. 

In Their Own Words

In Their Own Words: A multimedia, interdisciplinary performance project created for the ANZAC Centenary. 

Performed 23-28 April 2015 in the Oratory Space at Dominic College.

Dominic College received both a Commonwealth and State Anzac Centenary Grant to research, write and produce this original youth theatre production based on the 281 names on our Glenorchy War Memorial. Dominic College was the only school in Tasmania to be a recipient of both grants which supported this unique integrated learning project for students involving Humanities, Dance, Drama, Media Studies, Visual Arts, Music and Applied Studies. 

The main focus was the Glenorchy War Memorial, showing the names of those who fought in the Great War. Students in Year 9 last year started their researching from these names. One of the prime aims was to find photographs of each of those people named, and many local families shared information and photographs supporting the research. LINC Tasmania developed a gateway to relevant resources in recognition of the centenary and was also a valuable source of information.

InTheir Own Words was an memorable recognition of the contribution, the danger, the happiness and the sadness of those who participated in the war effort all wrapped up into one outstanding performance. The commitment from the staff and students involved was exceptional and we will never drive past the Glenorchy War Memorial again without remembering the sacrifice of the ‘diggers.’

The re-creation of the ANZAC buffet was located in a separate space nearby. During interval all audience members were encouraged to partake of tea and scones. Staff and students provided this service and were joined by many members of the cast, who assisted with the hospitality in this authentic setting. The layout, stories, pictures and hospitality were perfect and helped take visitors through a time warp to the ANZAC days.

Chris Donnelly
Teacher Librarian, Dominic College

Editor's note. So often we focus on published works for children, it is heartening to read of students who can apply the rigours of historical research to recreate significant stories from the past.

May is not “Get Caught Reading Month”

If we were in USA, we’d be celebrating “Get CaughtReading” month. 

But we’re not.  Reading isn’t on many people’s radar at the moment. In 2012 we had the National Year of Reading quietly ongoing with the theme of Love2Read, but without funding it has lost momentum. Once upon a time, until the Federal government withdrew funding, there was the National Book Council (now defunct except in Tasmania where it has held 10 author talks each year since 1982).  Then there were a number of reading campaigns, the best known being Get Reading which used to run in August/September. Until the funds ran out.  Now there’s Better Reading but it doesn’t have funds to take authors and illustrators into remote and rural areas.

 

For young children and parents, there is the Little Big Book Club.  It celebrated its 10^th birthday recently. And most importantly, there’s the Children Book Council of Australia which for 70 years has ”engaged the community with literature for young Australians”. Using donations of money and more importantly, thousands of hours/years of dedicated volunteer time, CBCA continues to present its annual “awards to books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature”. 

Sometimes, this reliance on donations saddens me and I wonder if it would be possible to become a “reading terrorist/extortionist” so I was intrigued to read Gabrielle Williams’ new novel, The Guy, The Girl, the Artist and his Ex (Allen & Unwin).  It’s based on an actual event – the Australian Cultural Terrorists who stole Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’ and held it for ransom demanding an increase in government funding for artists.  In typical Williams’ fashion, we have quirky/ flawed characters, a page-turning pace and deft touches of humour.  Well worth reading even if we don’t become “reading terrorists”... and for a germ of an idea – what can you do to trumpet the importance of reading?

Nella Pickup, Reader

Editor's note: If you know of any other current campaigns or programs that promote and celebrate children's literature  post a comment here on or our Facebook page.

The Benefits of Reading Aloud to Children

I have cherished memories of being a child, snuggling up to a parent and sitting there, staring at a book as it was read aloud to me. The magic of seeing squiggles on a page, pictures changing and every time the page was turned it was different! It was the start of my reading journey and I’m sure those early positive experiences of being read aloud to, were largely responsible for my life-long love of reading. I still read voraciously and my level of contentment correlates to the size of the ‘must read’ stack on my coffee table.

Fast forward, too many years to acknowledge, and reading aloud features again but this time I am reading to a group of twenty-six students in my Grade 5/6 class. I read every day for ten to twenty minutes, as they have their fruit and story break. It is an opportunity for the class to come together and share a reflective moment between blocks of core curriculum activity. I used to read to my Grade 3/4 students and never questioned whether or not it was something they would like to participate in but I was slightly sceptical that older students would view it as a pleasurable experience. I thought they would feel it was babyish to be read to, or that they would have grown out of the habit of being patient as a story was read aloud. My fears dissipated the first time I read aloud from E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. I looked up and every student was intently watching me and their engagement has continued on a daily basis.

Why do children of all ages enjoy being read aloud to? I believe it takes them back to that safe place from their early childhood. I think they get caught up in the reader’s enthusiasm for the book and it creates a space where everyone is sharing the same experience, as it is revealed paragraph by paragraph.

I believe the benefits of reading aloud to children of all ages are that, as an adult, you are able to model how you make meaning from the text, how you deal with words you are unfamiliar with, how to reread a passage in order to understand the context in which a word is used. An adult can encourage children to use the reading strategies of questioning, making connections, visualising, predicting, inferring and use these to discuss the themes and messages in a book. Being read to also develops a child’s ability to actively listen.

Adults have a responsibility, to a young audience, to lead by example. I demonstrate to my students the importance of reading by showing them the books that I read at home, even if it is to show them the size of James Joyce’s Ulysses to see their jaws drop. I confessed that I had to attend an evening reading group in order to understand it!  I’ll mention when I’m going to my monthly book club. There is a display next to me of other books written by the author of the book I’m currently reading to them. We also complete an Alphabox, where each box in a table is dedicated to a letter of the alphabet and we fill it in with the names of characters, settings, events and highlights, which can later be used as a writing seed. Reading aloud also enables you to discuss character and story development and have the fun of going off on many different topic tangents from your discussions.

Other books I have used as a read aloud are Kenneth Grahame’s, The Wind In The Willows; Kate DiCamillo’s, Because of Winn-Dixie; the children’s version of Homer’s, The Odyssey and they loved the gruesome endings to the original folklore by the Brothers Grimm.

The CBCA has wonderful Guides for Parents on how to choose books and read with your child. If you are not always in a position to read aloud at home, then the following websites have videos of book readings: Just Book Read Aloud and Storyline Online [created by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation]. The CBCA also features ReadingTime, which is an excellent website for book reviews, book suggestions, author interviews and other areas of interest to child and adult readers. 

Happy reading and please feel free to share your read aloud book suggestions in our comments section.

Helen Rothwell

Grade 5/6 teacher and Vice President of the CBCA Tasmania

A Time for Reflection and Acceptance

With the focus on the forthcoming ANZAC Day commemorations and the great surge of books being published on Gallipoli and other modern day conflicts I thought I would take a slightly different approach and highlight children’s books that celebrate the differences of the world, the acceptance of diversity and the courage of those who stand up for what is right.

Foremost in this present time, a person that children know about and can relate to, is Malala Yousafzai. Malala’s story is well known and she is an inspiration for standing up for what is right.  The photographic book Every Day is Malala Day, by Rosemary McCarney with Plan International, beautifully presents images of girls from around the world expressing their admiration for Malala and their dreams of overcoming barriers to girls’ education. This book also includes the transcript of Malala’s speech in 2013 to the United Nations’ Youth Assembly.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948 to protect the rights of all people from all countries, has been made accessible to children in the book  We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Rights in Pictures, published in association with Amnesty International. Illustrations are by renowned children’s book illustrators including John Burningham, Polly Dunbar, Deb Gliori and Axel Scheffler. Examples are available to view online at the Guardian. 

For very young children, the classic book Elmer, by David McKee, celebrates diversity and uniqueness with the story of a patchwork elephant finding his place in a grey elephant world. Black Skin, White Cow by Pablo Bernascon, again with an animal theme, is a story of self-acceptance.  From a human perspective the book Same, but Little Bit Diff’rent  by Kylie Dunstan compares the lives and interests of a city child to that of a child living in the top end of Australia.

Readers may be aware of a recent speech by the actress Angelina Jolie at a children’s award ceremony that is making the rounds on social media. Her comments are apt at this time of year when we reflect on past and present conflicts, the need to be advocates for peace and to be accepting of differences.

“Different is good. So don’t fit in, don’t sit still, don’t ever try to be less than what you are. And when someone tells you that you are different, smile, and hold your head up high and be proud.” Angelina Jolie, at Kid's Choice Awards, March 28, 2015, California

Tricia Scott

Teacher Librarian and CBCA Book of the Year Judge for Tasmania

Just for kids

Once, walking home, I saw a boy strolling in the opposite direction while simultaneously reading a copy of the latest novel by Ian McEwan. Thinking it pretty unusual to see someone that engrossed in a book, I stopped the young man and said: “It’s really good then, is it?” The poor guy looked at me like I’d just threatened his life and quickly ran away. Readers can be skittish things, but in the age of digital devices I miss passing people and spying on the words that they are falling into. Just as we aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, we probably shouldn’t judge a reader by their reading material--but has it ever stopped us, in either case?

Lemony Snicket once said that we should never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them. While judging for the council and travelling around the state, I certainly had more than one book with me—I’d be falling behind if I left home with anything less than a boxful. But even as someone who publicly loves children’s books—writes his own, for crying out loud—

I found myself very self conscious when I took some of my books out into public. What would people think when I was reading the latest Our Australian Girl at uni on my lunch break? Was it okay to sit in a coffee shop as a twenty-three old man, poring over the pictures of Fearless in Love?

The Guardian published an article recently titled 1Children’s Books Are Never Just For Children.' The article spoke of the care and brilliance of children’s books, wondering why they are never considered for major literary awards like the Man Booker or the Costa (one might also reasonably argue the Miles Franklin or Vogel), even when they have such longevity on our shelves, being visited and re-visited long after their passage from one generation to the next. In my experience, the Children’s Book Council of Australia takes children’s literature unerringly seriously. (Without risking too unsavoury a glimpse behind the curtain, let’s just say that the level of passion in the arguments that take place in the process of the Children’s Book of the Year Awards fall only fractionally short of trial by combat.) We love our children’s books. We live them. But can we get the rest of the world to take them seriously? Or are they just for kids?

Writers like Sonya Hartnett jump with wild abandon in and out of the realms of children and adult literature, sometimes even balancing precariously on the ledge between the two. But is Children of the King really a lesser work of craftsmanship when compared to Golden Boys, merely because of its audience? Does the value of Thursday’s Child change depending upon the design of its cover and the shelf upon which it sits in the library? Children’s books have an innocence and a simplicity to them, but so do many works of art. In many cases they are—regardless of their lack of widespread acknowledgment as such—every bit as deserving of major critical and literary attention as adult books—

sometimes even more so. Graphic novels, Y.A., picture books: all have lived too long in the shadow of the things that we feel are ‘appropriate’ adult reading. Children’s books and their ghettoised kin should be considered thoughtfully by the main panel on ABC’s The Book Club. They should be garnering major adult literary awards. They should be read in coffee shops and in universities—both outside and inside the classroom. If we want to stroll down the street reading them, we shouldn’t feel self-conscious about doing so. (Watch for traffic, please.) Why? Because children’s books matter. They’ve always mattered.

Now it’s time to acknowledge them.

Lyndon Riggall

Author 

(& from the editor [drumroll])

Category winner of The Coffee Club Arts and Fashion Award in the Southern Cross Young Achiever of the Year 2015. Read about these prestigious awards in the Tasmanian Premier's announcement.

CBCA Reading Time

Are you are great reader of blogs and book reviews? Do you use these tools to help choose the books you want to read?

I certainly do and one of my favourites is Reading Time. For the past 12 months or so, Reading Time has been freely available online, replacing the long-running print version which was so widely respected as a review tool for (mainly) Australian books. The online version is no different, so if you haven’t already subscribed, do yourself a favour and do it today. All you need is your email address and you will receive regular postings.  If you want to check what’s been recently reviewed there are several paths which can be followed to find your favourite category.

Here are a few of my recent readings, not all of them Australian. I have chosen ones which were not reviewed in Reading Time – there’s no point in duplicating such a great resource. 

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julia Berry

Set in the Victorian period, the seven students at St Ethelreda’s School for Girls find themselves in a race against time when their headmistress and her brother are poisoned at the lunch table. None of the girls wants to return home, so with deception, farcical situations and amazing coincidences, they manage to conceal the event from the village before identifying the killer. Good characterisation and lots of laughs, both out loud and internal smirks. I enjoyed this book, though I think perhaps it is a book for adults rather than its target audience of middle school.

The three bears … sort of by Yvonne Morrison, illustrated by Donovan Bixley
Another story about the three bears? Well, yes. But not quite as traditionally told. This time there is an extra voice: a questioning one who keeps asking how and why things happened. And on the way, the reader learns a lot more about the habits of bears as well as developing visual perception both within the book itself and in the world at large. It was great and I look forward to finding more titles by this New Zealand combination. 

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
This is a dual narrative: one thread is Vivian’s and the other is Molly’s. Vivian’s story is based on factual events. She, like lots of other children at the time, was an orphan sent from New York by train to be adopted by a family in the mid-west of the USA.  Molly is a modern recalcitrant teenager, doing community service rather than detention, helping clean up Vivian’s attic and the two find that they have more in common than their age differences would suggest. The novel is at times over-written, which does it a disservice, but the subject matter keeps the book on track.

Nona and Me by Clare Atkins
Rosie and Nona are ‘sisters’ because of their long-standing family connections despite their ethnic differences. They are inseparable till Nona moves away when the girls are 9. When she returns, years later, life is no longer the same.  Rosie is focussed on the town, her boyfriend and peer pressures intrude. She sees all the faults of her home environment in Yirrkala and has to make a choice between her ties to her community and her love for Nick. Why can’t she have both? This is a great discussion book with strong themes of racism, friendship, peer pressure and family/kinship/community.

Maureen Mann
Retired teacher librarian and avid reader

Nan Chauncy Award

This morning I have been meeting with Board member Jenni Connor, for further planning for the Tasmanian branch’s promotion of the Nan Chauncy Award for 2015. If you’re not sure exactly what the Nan Chauncy award is, go to http://cbca.org.au/nanchauncy.htm for more information about Nan and the Award.

What are we planning? 

We are kicking off with a ‘travelling suitcase’ exhibition, which will be available for display in interested public libraries in Tasmania. The first library to house this display will be the Hobart LINC, and, if all goes to plan, it will be available from late May in that library, so if you are a Hobart LINC user, be sure to look for it when you’re there. Where will it go next?  We don’t know at the moment, but we hope many of the forty-odd libraries which are part of LINC will put their hands up as potential homes for the exhibition. 

A couple of us are trekking round the opportunity shops in the Hobart area, looking everywhere to find suitable items to add to the CBCA(Tas) suitcase. I can understand the attraction of looking for specific treasures in such shops – there’s always something that brings back memories of my past life!

In June we expect to have John Marsden in Hobart for the weekend – ‘high tea’ with John will be an exciting opportunity for us all to get together to hear him speak about Nan. It won’t be long before our website is ready to take bookings for this, so watch for information on www.cbcatas.org.

Book Week is in August and that’s the time for a showing of the film of one of Nan’s books – They found a cave. You will be able to come along to the State Cinema and enjoy that, whether you’ve seen it before or not. And we’re still organising a showing in the north – you’ll see more on our website in the future.

Our final activity will be at Chauncy Vale itself – again the date is not set but we plan for early October.

And if you don’t think that’s enough for me and the other planners, add in the necessity to read (or re-read) Nan’s books. I’m on Mathinna’s People at the moment; Tangara and Tiger in the Bush have made their impact, and They Found a Cave will be next. The LINC has copies of all Nan’s works in Fiction Stack, available by request, and you can find pre-loved copies on the Internet if you look hard. No doubt you have your own copies at home too, and there may even be copies in various school libraries as well!

Patsy Jones

(CBCA(Tas) treasurer, retired librarian, retired teacher)