Children’s Book Week 2016 runs from 31st October to 4th November and is an annual celebration of books and reading for pleasure organised by the UK’s largest reading charity, BookTrust. This is great reason to get creative about books and reading and the BookTrust website has provided some ideas for ways you can celebrate with your class:

Book Week ideas  (taken from the BookTrust website)

Here are some easy ways you and your pupils can celebrate Children’s Book Week:

• Create a cosy ‘book nook’: turn a corner of your classroom or library into an area where pupils can relax and enjoy reading books. The more cushions, the better! Look through our Great Books Guide for some of our favourite recent reads for children.
• Tell some stories: Encouraging children to read for pleasure is about more than just getting them to pick up a book – it’s equally as important to appreciate a good story. Read a book with your class at the end of each day for 20 minutes, and let them simply sit back and enjoy…
• Involve parents and carers: see if you can get parents and carers to join in with Children’s Book Week. You could invite them to take part in the fun of Storytime, or share a book with their child one afternoon in school.
• Have a dress-up day: What better way to celebrate stories, than becoming the characters in them! Ask your pupils to dress up as their favourite character from a book. You could even let them have fun making their own outfits and props in class.
• Bring a book to life: Act out one of your class’s favourite books – maybe one from our Great Books Guide, such as Kitchen Disco. Let the children grab some props, musical instruments and whatever else they want out, and have some fun re-telling the story together.
• Hold a book club: Set up a fun lunchtime book club, where pupils can enjoy discussing books and stories in more detail. Make it relaxed, cosy, and don’t forget the snacks!
• Start writing: Children’s Book Week opens up lots of great opportunities for you to encourage your pupils to write. Why not suggest they write a review of their favourite book or create a character profile? If you display these in your book corner, they may go on to help other pupils looking for their next exciting book to read.
• Get creative: Let your pupils get arty by drawing their favourite characters from different books, creating their own personalised bookmarks or even designing their own book covers. Get out the paints, crayons and glitter, and have some fun!
• Arrange a special visitor: Children’s Book Week is an ideal time to arrange for an author or illustrator to visit your school and inspire the pupils about reading and writing. More information on organising an author visit  

 

Win books!

The BookTrust have also released a guide to their best books of 2016 for primary school-age children, which you download for free as a pdf or view online by age category (ages 4-5, 6-7, and 8 and above). You can win a selection of books from the guide by answering a simple question about the featured books. Enter the competition here

     

100 Best Books of ALL Time

For another guide to great books, check out their list of the 100 best children books from the last 100 years. This is billed as the ultimate guide to the books children should read before they’re 14, but would also work for teachers and school librarians (without that age limit obviously!). I still have quite a few to get through myself by the looks of it. How many have you read from the list?

 

Make it local

  

I’m sure most of you have noticed the proliferation of dog sculptures that have appeared around Brighton and Hove recently? They’re part of a public art trail called Snowdogs by the Sea which was designed to raise funds for the Martlet’s Hospice in Hove. Inspired by Raymond Brigg’s classic picture book, The Snowman, the Snowdog character first appeared in an animated film called The Snowman and the Snowdog to mark the 30th anniversary of the original book. Until November 27th 2016, you can find 45 Snowdogs around town; each decorated by a different artist. Martlet’s also invited local schools to decorate smaller versions of the Snowdog, called Snowpups, and these can be seen at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Booth Museum of Natural History, Hove Library, Hove Museum and Jubilee Library. The sculptures would be a topical way to:

• link to an author study on Raymond Briggs (who taught for over 20 years at the Brighton School of Art – now part of the University of Brighton!)
• link to other stories featuring dogs such as:
  • Julia Donaldson and Sarah Ogilvie’s new picture book, The Detective Dog
  • Michael Rosen’s book, Choosing Crumble
  • Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre’s hilarious book, Pugs of the Frozen North
  • Emma Chichester Clark’s graphic novel, Plumdog
• link to an art-inspired story such as:
  • David Wiesner’s picture book, Art and Max
  • Aaron Becker’s wordless picture book trilogy, Journey, Quest, and Return
  • Shaun Tan’s new book about his sculptures based on Grimm fairy tales, The Singing Bones

 

Keep your eye on the BookTrust’s Children’s Book Week page for further news and resources.