Picturebooks 12 - Word perfect

A well-stocked picturebook library can prepare the early years practitioner for responding to almost any situation. A reading corner with diverse texts is the perfect cross-curricular learning environment, as picturebooks can start or extend learning and conversations pertaining to every topic imaginable.

It is important for practitioners to have a good working knowledge of the texts they make available for the children in their setting – so they can offer resources that support the specific themes and areas of learning for which they are planning, and to spark interests and new directions for exploration in their young learners themselves.

I hope to have shown over this series the richness and diversity of picturebooks – both classic and cutting-edge – and some of their specific subject-based uses, as well as how they help young learners of all ages – from the very youngest to those moving up to Key Stage 1 – to flourish developmentally, emotionally and intellectually.

To conclude this series, I thought I would revisit the most helpful resources I encountered in my research, providing a go-to whistlestop guide to help you in selecting your own library essentials. Most have now updated their reading lists since publication from 2019 to 2020, reflecting the vibrancy and richness of children’s publishing.

Many authors and illustrators, publishers and literacy charities display a real awareness and commitment to addressing the most timely issues of the day, creating space in picturebooks for thinking through social concerns so important to the well-being of our young learners and the society they will soon grow up to lead.

Of course, I have had to access the resources I recommend below online during our second wave of lockdown, but can’t recommend highly enough shopping at specialist children’s bookshops and borrowing from the children’s sections of local libraries once our world opens up again. The knowledge and passion of bookshop staff and librarians can be second to none, and such a valuable resource which we must continue to support and appreciate.

Every early years setting is different, working to educational philosophies and curricular priorities dependent on the specific needs of their learning communities. So, too, will every practitioner feel comfortable in working with a different picturebook library. One of the most important lessons any practitioner can impart at storytime, however, is a genuine love of reading and sharing stories – so it is important to build your own library with resources to which you, too, will enjoy returning alongside your young learners, time and again. Good luck, and have fun exploring!

WORDLESS PICTUREBOOKS

Guides as to the best new wordless picturebooks, and suggestions for their use in the classroom and in small group reading, are regularly updated by the International Board on Books for Young People. I returned to its resource list in collating this essentials guide, and was delighted to find its new biennial recommendations for the best wordless picturebooks recently published around the world. Its recommendations for the newest UK releases, most readily available for Nursery World readers, are:

• A Stone for Sascha by Aaron Becker – A girl mourns her dog Sascha, but a walk along the beach to gather polished stones becomes a brilliant turning point in the girl’s grief.
• Chalk Eagle by Nazli Tahvili – A boy watches an eagle and wonders what it would be like to fly away from the city and soar over mountains and rivers. So he draws his own eagle and himself into existence and the two embark on a wonderful adventure.
• Caged by Duncan Annand – A bluebird watches as two men build a huge palace of caged birds, then she has an idea…
• Once Upon a Snowstorm by Richard Johnson – A boy separated from his father during a snowstorm is rescued by animals and returned to his home.
• Shadow by Suzy Lee – Lee’s storytelling encourages readers to turn her book around in all directions to make sense of her intricate illustrations, making Shadow a book worth revisiting in order to appreciate it in all its interactive potential.
  
  

BOOKS FOR PSED

Empathy Lab is an organisation really dedicated to developing children’s emotional literacy alongside their phonic knowledge and love of reading through high-quality literature. Its annual ‘Read for Empathy’ lists provide an excellent guide as to the best new releases which tackle emotional subjects with sensitivity in an age-appropriate way for the youngest readers. Here are some recommendations from 2020 and favourites from recent years:

• Super Duper You by Sophy Henn – A brother writes funny messages to his little sister about what makes her unique.
• Polonius the Pit Pony by Richard O’Neill, illustrated by Feronia Parker-Thomas – Polonius escapes the coal mine and begins life with a family of Travellers.
• The Last Chip by Duncan Beedie – A homeless man comes to the rescue when bullying birds stop a pigeon from eating.
• Sweep by Louise Greig, illustrated by Julia Sarda – An uplifting story about confronting big emotions.
• Along Came a Different by Tom McLaughlin – The reds, blues and yellows don’t like each other until another colour comes along who likes them all.
• How To Be A Lion by Ed Vere – A lion and a duck are the best of friends, then one day a pack of bullies questions whether it’s right for them to be pals.
• Cyril and Pat by Emily Gravett – When Squirrel discovers his best friend is not a squirrel but a rat, the friendship wobbles.
  
  For more of 2020’s recommendations, see ‘No fear?’, part 2 of this picturebook series, at www.nurseryworld.co.uk. The list for 2021 is expected to be published in the third week of January.

BOOKS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT

Picturebooks provide an important means of introducing children to the wider world, and the issues which can come to define a generation. For a topic as important as the environment, I was delighted to find recommendations for top early years reads from publishers (Puffin has a section on environmental texts reserved on Penguin’s website); literacy charities (booktrust.org.uk provides ‘Environment’ as one of its themed booklists); and major news publishers (The Guardian and HuffPost shared recommendations in special articles).

Here are five new top picks:

• Lots by Marc Martin – Travel far and wide, from the villages, towns and cities to deserts and vast oceans.
• When I Grow Up by Tim Minchin, illustrated by Steve Antony – Surely adults have all the fun, eating sweets and watching cartoons. Or do they?
• Petra by Marianna Coppo – The adventures of a little rock, who initially thinks she is a mighty mountain.
• Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel, illustrated by Alexandra Colombo– Join the green-caped crusader as he rescues the town drowning in rubbish.
• 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World by Melanie Walsh – Ten simple steps to conserving nature and energy.
  
  

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

Over the past year, we have sadly witnessed once again the importance of teaching respect for diversity and anti-racism in our settings. The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education’s commitment to the annual production of its Reflecting Realities report shines an important light on ethnic diversity in publishing and content in British children’s books, and also publicises some of the fantastic new work being produced for you to share in the classroom. These are the early years picturebooks featured in the 2020 report:

• Where’s Lenny? by Ken Wilson-Max – Lenny plays hide and seek with his dad.
• Lenny and Wilbur by Ken Wilson-Max – Lenny cares for his best friend, Wilbur the dog, who just makes Lenny laugh.
• Look Up! by Nathan Bryon, illustrated by Dapo Adeola – Science-mad Rocket is going to be the greatest astronaut, star-catcher, space-traveller ever, but can she persuade her brother to look up at the stars?
• My Pet Star by Corrinne Averiss, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw – When a little girl finds a lost star, she takes it home and cares for it, just like a pet. And the more she cares for it, the brighter it glows. Until, one day, it’s time to let go…
• Astro Girl by Ken Wilson-Max– A little girl wants to be an astronaut and reckons she has the skills; turns out she has the perfect role model.
• Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o, illustrated by Vashti Harrison – Sulwe’s skin is the colour of midnight, and darker than everyone’s in her family and at school. All she wants is to be beautiful like her mother and sister, until a magical night-time journey.
• The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson – an ode to black history.
  
  

FORGOTTEN CLASSICS FOR DIFFICULT TIMES

We have recently seen the world and our own communities troubled by illness, inequality, political upheaval and social unrest. Little ones in our settings are sensitive to the world around them and the feelings and experiences of their teachers and caregivers. We owe them a responsibility, too, in preparing them for their own future roles in navigating the difficulties they are sure to inherit and will have to face.

Here are some picturebooks that address often difficult and sensitive issues in an appropriate way for early years settings, and which illustrate how powerful the picturebook can be in responding to the world in which we live.

• Monsters by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Quentin Blake – John loves to draw monsters that get ever bigger. How long will they remain just a drawing?
• Tusk Tusk by David McKee – Once upon a time, elephants were black or white, but their battle to destroy each other unexpectedly produced the elephants we know today.
• Two Giants by Michael Foreman – Best friends fall out making their beautiful world dark and miserable.
• The General by Michael Foreman – When a general falls off his horse and discovers the beauty of nature, he vows to change the world around him into one of peace and beauty.
• The Enemy: A Book About Peace by Davide Cali, illustrated by Serge Bloch – Two soldiers facing each other across a barren battlefield discover the enemy is not a faceless beast, but rather a real person.

These are texts which can be shared with children in small groups in response to specific situations – working with refugees, for example, or with children from families struggling with mental illness. Make room for these special texts in your teaching cupboard to know you have just the resource at hand for every reader.

Texts like these can complement a fully rounded and joyful picturebook library, which should be made accessible to everyone all year round. Picturebooks needn’t be confined to the reading corner or to storytime – they can ‘live’ in every learning area of your setting!

Perhaps you could prepare a book box to support learning in your maths area, as well as one full of non-fiction texts to extend exploration at the nature table. Picturebooks are the perfect tool to nourish and inspire learning across all areas of the curriculum, and one of the most important resources with which every early years practitioner should feel comfortable and excited about using.

Books for babies and toddlers

Booktrust is one of the UK’s leading literacy charities, and is dedicated to sharing reviews and recommendations for the best new publications to get children reading. Its website has a useful function – ‘Bookfinder’ – which allows you to search for books by age range, and by type or topic, including new publications.

Here are five of its recommendations for the best new books for babies and toddlers:

• Portly Pig by Axel Scheffler – Pig sets off in search of a muddy puddle in this rhyming farmyard tale.
• Goodnight Bear by Joshua George – Bear wants to say goodnight to his friends and finds them with the help of a magic ‘torch’ – which slides over the page illuminating the images.
• Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! by Annie Kubler – Head for the moon.
• Let’s Go, Fire Truck! by Fhiona Galloway – It’s a busy day putting out fires and rescuing kittens in this boardbook with concentric shaped pages.
• ABC by Tim Hopgood – Filled with colourful and eye-catching illustrations.
  
  

Poetry please

Poetry provides a perfect vehicle for getting children to fall in love with language, and is the medium through which so many picturebooks become true classroom classics – what would We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and The Gruffalo be without their distinctive rhyme schemes!

Empathy Lab recommended the first two new collections below for their emotional as well as aural sensibility, and I found a further three key recommendations from Love Reading 4 Kids, which helpfully sorts new books by genre – including poetry! – to round out the list of picks:

Shuffle and Squelch by Julia Donaldson

Out and About: A First Book of Poems by Shirley Hughes

I Wish I Had a Pirate’s Hat by Roger Stevens

Hopscotch in the Sky by Lucinda Jacob and Lauren O’Neill

The Noisy Classroom by Ieva Flamingo, illustrated by Vivianna Maria Stanislavska (translated by Zanete Vavere Pasqualini, Sara Smith and Richard O’Brien)

MORE INFORMATION

• www.booktrust.org.uk
• www.empathylab.uk
• International Board on Books for Young People, www.ibby.org
• www.lovereading4kids.co.uk