Month: April 2012

The school that I am currently working in has been chosen to take part in the Carnegie/Greenaway Shadowing Scheme. For those of you who may not know what it is (I didn’t until a month or so ago), it’s essentially a book club for selected children, who are given the opportunity to read some beautifully written, hand-picked books. These books have been nominated for the said Carnegie/Greenaway Children’s Book Award and our children will be given a voice to decide upon the winners of this prestigious award.

The children involved will meet once a week with me, to read and discuss a given novel. These sessions will be video recorded, to provide evidence of how the scheme is working and to help plan future activities. In addition, the group will have a webpage on a hosted site, where they will be asked to blog about the activities of the reading group. This is such an amazing opportunity! I work in the heart of East London, so for many of these children, far reaching opportunities are not always easy to come by.

Just before the Easter break we met up so that the children could select their first book of choice. Over the coming weeks, they will all have the chance to read any title from the books provided. And let me tell you, the list is exceptional, including Patrick Ness’ ‘A Monster Calls’, David Almond’s ‘My Name is Mina’ and Sonia Hartnett’s ‘The Midnight Zoo’.

Today was the first time we met to discuss the books. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of the children’s response. I don’t want this to be adult led; it’s driven by the children, so it’s a gamble. What if they just say nothing? What if they forget to read their book? Within ten seconds (I’m not exaggerating here), all of my concerns melted away. The group spoke with passion and clarity about their reading. They got to grips with the characters, they had thought about who would enjoy reading the book next. It was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences that I have had as a teacher in the past sixteen years.

We plan to share the titles for younger readers with our Reception and Year 1 pupils, with the reading group taking on the adult role as reader, gauging responses to text and illustration. As with the list of titles for our older readers, the quality for younger children is just as high, including Emily Gravett’s ‘Wolf Won’t Bite!’ and Petr Horáček’s ‘Puffin Peter’ amongst the delicious collection.

If you would like to find out more about the shortlists or maybe even get involved, there is a website with all of the info you will need:

http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/shadowingsite/

What constitutes a good bedtime read? Well, it depends on the age, the mood, the level of sleepiness, but in this instance I’m thinking about a bedtime story for younger children.

Up until now, Mr Frog and I have always favoured a picture book, with a gentle rhythm, lovingly illustrated and seemingly designed to invoke calm upon our brood. The phrase ‘sleep is boring’ is often heard in our house, so the bedtime routine needs to be a cunning mix of parental love, peaceful thoughts and a distinction between story time and lights out!

However, in the past week or so, we have discovered the joys of poetry. We have always read poems to our children and encouraged them to read books of verse for themselves, but not used them as a tool to induce sleep. I have to say it’s been wonderful. Max chooses the book, Mr Frog picks out three or four poems and let the reading commence.

It’s been a really lovely experience and I’m not actually sure why we have never done it before. After all, we used to sing to the children all of the time, until they begged us to stop in fact. I have one poignant memory of Alice simply saying ‘Oh Mummy, don’t’ and looking rather perturbed by my dulcet tones…I digress. The point is, poems are awesome. They don’t have to be specifically for children, they just need to speak to our children on some level.

If you could go back to your childhood, what would your bedtime book of choice be?

What an exciting day it’s been in the world of Chicken and Frog! Although we went to the London Book Fair primarily to meet publishers and the like, we also had the opportunity to meet authors. Sadly we missed Patrick Ness today (boo), but we did manage to be in the audience for the interview between Lindsay Mackie (English PEN’s Readers and Writers Committee) and the rather fantastic Anthony Horowitz. I know, THE Anthony Horowitz!

It was a very relaxed set up, which meant that the audience felt a real connection with Horowitz. The questions ranged from the differences between writing for children and adults, libraries, schools, violence in children’s fiction and the inspiring work that Horowitz takes part in when he visits young offenders in prison. When asked about the latter, Horowitz replied that ‘in a very very dark tunnel [reading] is a spark of light.’

The importance of libraries, in particular school libraries, came up. He believes wholeheartedly that the school library saved his life, that books saved him when he was at school. Although an advocate of e-books, he said ‘I don’t believe the book is finished…I think they’re with us for a long time.’ That was probably a highlight for me! I think there was an audible smile and nod response from the audience. The fact that Horowitz writes his first draft in fountain pen, on real paper was also good to hear. Of course, final drafts are submitted via a laptop, but how wonderful to hear that the physicality of writing lives on.

At one point Horowitz suggested that it may be ‘time for new younger talent’ to come to the fore. I think that it’s fair to say that no-one agreed with that statement. He went on to say that he is ‘writing for a very visual generation…everything is image…you have to write visually, as if you’re writing a film.’ In no way is this prolific writer out of touch with the demands of the next generation of young readers.

I look forward with great anticipation to whatever Anthony Horowitz has to offer next, whether it be a screenplay, a novel, a short story or a play-script…and I am a very grateful chicken for seeing and hearing the man himself today!

 

Today was the final day of the LBF 2012 and our very first time visiting. It was a great opportunity for us to get to grips with some of the nitty gritty of bookselling, as well as a chance to do a bit of networking with publishers.

The experience was invaluable, as it really helped to cement some of our ideas and answered a lot of our questions. The only problem is that we need to build an extension to house the catalogues and fab proof books that we were plied with!

We now have contacts to push our dreams even further into the realms of reality, including wonderful people from Bounce and Letterland who are so passionate about what they do, that you can’t help but be swept along by their waves of enthusiasm.

Our next daunting step is to make choices about the titles we want to offer at Chicken and Frog, but that’s a whole other blog entry…

After nearly a whole day of waiting, our middle radish finally got to take a look around the Pottermore site. She was really looking forward to it. I could tell because she managed to get dressed in about a minute, which in this house is a record. Off she rushed to log in and all seemed well. We heard a gleeful ‘Yes!’ as she was assigned to Gryffindor; I think it would have all been over if any other House had been allocated. But, within an hour she reached a disappointing verdict. The positives are that it is free, you can chat with people in your House and you ‘get to take cool quizzes’, but on the negative ‘the games seem a bit pointless because the instructions aren’t clear’ and the interaction was limited.

I had a quick look myself (for research purposes of course!) and unfortunately, I have to agree. Although the site has great potential and looks rather wonderful, it is quite dull in reality. Maybe some of the glitches will be ironed out over time, but for now, in the opinion of our radish, Pottermore does not live up to the hype. For a book loving parent, there is a plus-side of this disappointment and that is that the books hold more appeal, which will result in less screen time. As an advocate of reading over playing computer games, for me at least, this isn’t such a bad thing.

As with everything, opinions will differ greatly, so I leave you to decide for yourselves. Is Pottermore a hit or a miss?

 

 

 

Well this morning finally saw the opening of the metaphoric Pottermore doors to the general public. I can not describe quite how over excited our 10 year old daughter is. To say she’s been banging on about it for months would be an understatement. But, if I’m honest, my excitement probably matches hers. Just imagine, a whole new world for Potter fans to explore. If the reviews from the beta are anything to go by, we’re in for a visual treat, although some commented that the interaction itself was lacking.

The doors creaked open a few hours ago, but alas, the wait is not quite over yet! The site is inundated with curious fans all eager to have a sneaky peak at JK’s latest offering. This has resulted in a bit of a backlog, so we are still waiting for that all important, glorious email which will grant access to the hidden treasures of Pottermore. Whether you’re a fan of Harry and his pals or not, there’s no denying that the Pottermore experience will engage and enthrall children and that can’t be a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t take them away from their reading ;).

Watch this space for an update…if we ever get beyond the opening animations!

I am a lucky chicken! I have been chosen to review ‘Tell the Wolves I’m Home’ by début  novelist Carol Rifka Brunt. I can’t post my review here, but I will say that I read it in two days, which is pretty quick considering it’s the Easter hols and I’m at home herding three radishes around. The review will be published on http://www.lovereading.co.uk/book/7206/Tell-the-Wolves-I-m-Home-by-Carol-Rifka-Brunt.html within the next few days. It is a truly beautiful read – get the tissues ready though, you may need them.

Welcome to our blog. This is all very new for me, so bear with my wittering. I thought I’d begin by explaining our name. We had no idea what to call our new venture, and then Jim (yes, I will blame him) said, ‘How about ‘Chicken and Frog’, you know, like the joke?’ So, this is the joke:

A chicken walks into a bookshop and says ‘Book, book, book, book.’

The Frog replies ‘Readit, readit, readit!’

It’s terrible we know, but it still makes me chortle, so it’s stuck. I can only apologise…