Book Week

Book Parade 21 August 9.15am

Howdy all,

So Book Week begins this Saturday and finishes next Saturday. To participate in this annual event, which celebrates the best of Australian writing for kids, we are holding our much loved Book Week parade next Thursday at 9.15am on the basket ball court. Students can come dressed as their favourite character from a book (and bring the book if possible), to display their love for all things bookish. Wow. Have I said books one too many times??

Parents, carers and families are encouraged to come and celebrate with us. Students will head to their classes for roll marking then head out to the designated area for the parade.

It doesn’t have to be a huge effort. Home made is often the best and even a pair of cat ears or tail is enough to create a festive environment.

And for those students who don’t enjoy dressing up, or the attention, they can come in their regular clothes and be a muggle (normal, non-magical humans) from the Harry Potter series. Everyone is included in whatever way they feel comfortable.

The parade usually finishes around 10 am and there are plenty of opportunities for photos.

At the moment I’m reading the short-listed picture story books from the CBCA short list to the grade 1 / 2 classes. When we’re finished reading the 6 books, we’ll vote on which book we think should win the award. The students often have a different opinion to the official judges and I usually (always) agree with what the students have chosen. I’ll put the results in the next Library newsletter.

The library also has multiple copies of the younger readers’ shortlisted books, which are available in the library. I’ll be talking to the older years about those books next week. We’ve trialled the Shadow Judging element of the CBCA program and, while we didn’t meet the deadline this year, we will keep reading the books with those in the group and come to our decision when we’ve finished the list.

Next year I’ll be more organised and make sure we get through the list in a timely fashion. It’s been a lot this year, what with moving the library and getting things in shape for library sessions. But we’ve had some great convos about what we’ve enjoyed so far, and what didn’t quite work for us with the Younger Readers’ short list.

Anyway, the buzz around the parade is definitely ramping up. I hope it doesn’t cause too much exhaustion your end!

See you all next Thursday for Book Parade shenanigans.

Kim ( who hates dressing up but loves the kids and their excitement 😉 )