Library News
Food glorious food! Many of our library books feature tasty treats and snacks. This week our year one cohort enjoyed creating a library display based on the book ‘Stay For Dinner’ By Sandhya Parappukkaran and illustrated by Michelle Pereira. This bright, cheerful book explores the theme of diversity through the lens of various cultures’ cuisines and dinner table behaviours and customs.
‘Reshma loves dinnertime with her family. Her family eat with their hands – not just finger food type-eating, but hands-on squishy eating. When she’s invited to stay for dinner at her friends’ places, she finds out that they all eat in different ways. Some go ting ting with their cutlery, and others go click clack with their chopsticks. So what will her friends say when they see her family eat with their hands?’
We all enjoyed our new favourite story and then we had a go at drawing our favourite dinners onto paper plates and sticking them around the library. We had pasta, sushi, burgers and a plate of leaves that made me ask a student why they were eating leaves like a koala. I was reminded of a food called Spinach and felt a little silly and also impressed that this is someone’s all-time favourite tucker! We are spoiled for choice in our community with great food. On my street we have two of everything when it comes to food! Two Mexican joints, two Japanese places, two Greek cake shops and further up the road, we even have two Coles! Lucky us.
Foundation also celebrated a food related book, ‘The Gingerbread Man’. It is an oldie but a goodie Fairytale where the main character gets eaten by a Fox! And boy did he look delicious. It inspired me to see if our Foundation teachers would scoff a main character. So, I travelled down the road to our lovely Arthur St Deli (here in Alph), where they had baked a tray of fresh Gingerbread Men that were ready to be chased through the town. Would Chiara, Alice and Emily eat a book character? Oh yeah! They were hungry like the fox and gobbled him all up. I captured the evidence down below.
We don’t condone eating main characters here in the library but we will make exceptions.
How could I nearly sign off without mentioning my favourite week of the term, Children’s Book Week! Book Week is from the 16th August – 23rd August. Our day to don a costume for our special visitors/grandparents will be held on Wednesday the 20th August. Our parade will be bigger and better with all of our visitors attending from 9:00am-11:00am. Please let your special friends/grandparents know and tell them they can dress up….or not. We also take this time to collect a book from each student to add to our library. This book can be one you’ve finished with (in good condition) or a new book that you think APS will thoroughly enjoy.
A reminder about our performance happening on the 29th August. Meerkat Productions are presenting Freya Blackwood’s book A Garden of Broken Things for our prep-year 4 students.
The Garden of Broken Things is a masterfully composed, metaphorical tale that helps children understand both the value of the old and the young. It is told age-appropriately in tender words and watercolour, pencil and pastel.
Freya Blackwood is one of our most accomplished and highly regarded picture book creators. Two of her books are shortlisted in the 2025 CBCA Picture Book of the Year category: The Garden of Broken Things, and Afloat, illustrated by Freya Blackwood, with text by Kirli Saunders. Our library has many copies of these books available for borrowing.
Our Premiers’ Reading Challenge is still underway and concludes in September. Everyone is still logging their reading and submitting some fabulous book reviews. Keep it up!
Oooh…another clue about who I will be for our parade. If you visit me in First Aid with a ‘ball-to-the-head’ injury, I may shout “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” No heads will be removed, I am just getting into the swing of my character’s favourite line.
Happy reading folks! And…..do keep your heads screwed on.
Below is a lovely reading of ‘Stay For Dinner’ read by Indira Naidoo for your viewing and listening pleasure.
https://youtu.be/PPioM_SbQek?si=kt2znk961t69uzNO
Lizzy