Li Lun, Lad of courage

This is a short read but is a great story about Chinese culture and overcoming difficulty. Li Lun, is a boy aged ten, who has come of age, and is to show his worth by joining the men from his village to become fisherman. Li Lun is afraid of the sea water and is labelled a coward by the other fisherman and his father. To show his worth he must grow seven times the number of rice grains his father gives him at the top of the mountain.

This is where we see Li Lun's character develop and the story unfold. This will be a good story to read to stage 2 children.

Yoko's Diary

This book was one of the shortlisted books for the 2014 Children's book council awards in the information text category.

This book was complied a few years ago but only recently translated into English and this edition is written so Australian children can relate to the story. For example, Yoko travelled in one day the distance of two City to Surf courses. 

This is the real diary of school girl who lived in Hiroshima during WWII. Tragically Yoko did not survive the dreadful bombing. I learnt a lot from this book and life in Japan in this era. I would suggest stage 3, grades 5 and 6 or older would like this book.

Frindle

When I first looked at the grammar scope and sequence, even I had to look up the term "neologism". For those of you who have never heard the term, or are teaching Stage 2 for the first time, neologism is the name for a newly coined term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

The book Frindle is the perfect book to illustrate this term. It is an easy light read. I can't wait to read this book to my class. It is about a boy called Nick who has a Grade 5 teacher who has high expectations about grammar, vocabulary and spelling. She loves the dictionary. Nick tries to waste time in class one day asks who decides what words are important enough to go in the dictionary. Cleverly the teacher asks Nick to find the answer and present a report to the class. After presenting his findings, he continues to question and on the way home makes up the word "frindle". I won't reveal what this word means, you will have to read the book to find out.

A highly engaging read.

26 Fairmont Avenue

This is a really easy read, and the first in this series. It is the autobiography of author Tomie DePaola. He has written books such as Strega Nona, as well as Big Anthony, and the Cloud book. This year I am moving down to middle primary and I wanted to read a book that children can examine the author's craft to improve their own writing. This is one of those books. The author has written about ideas which are familiar to him with detail. I am hoping by examining this book with my class I can improve their writing.

The book is set in 1938, which is very unfamiliar to the class, but since Tomie's book reflects his life before going to kindergarten, I am hoping that the children can still make connections.

My favourite chapter is Tomie's reflection of seeing Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven dwarves for the first time. I can't wait to read this chapter to the class.

A very  enjoyable light read.