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Too often adults dismiss ‘the funny books’ like the Treehouse series by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton as not quite as worthy as more ‘highbrow’ literary choices. A balanced literary diet is great but, so too is page after page of laughter over witty writing and words which make young…
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The latest book by Dannika Patterson and Megan Forward, ‘Scribbly Gum Secrets’ could not have come at a better time for my family and I as 2020 has seen us do a lot more bushwalking in our local area and this is one of the very few things I will…
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Guest Article by Tracey Hand of Optimise Learning. Co-founder of Optimise Learning, Tracey Hand, is a former teaching colleague and she is one of the most outstanding teachers I have ever seen in a classroom. In fact I respect her wisdom on all things reading so very much that I…
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Recently I was asked to be a part of The Groundswell Project Dying to Know Day campaign. Dying To Know Day (August 8th) is an annual day of action dedicated to activating conversations and community actions around death, dying and bereavement. I am intimately acquainted with grief. The tragic death…
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ChickPea is NINE! It seems like just yesterday we were having her first birthday party, a ‘Bad Tempered Ladybird Party’ because she screamed with reflux pain for the first year of her life! Then she had a Wild Things Party at two and a Stomping Dinosaur Party at three ……
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You’ll know, if you’ve been reading my musings for a while now, that I often talk about the wonders of audio books and podcasts – especially for car rides. For more on the power of audio books see Chapter 9 of my book ‘Raising Readers’. As an educator, I’m going…
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A few short weeks ago, author Allison Rushby, a member of the Your Kid’s Next Read admin team, mentioned she was about to start reading Thomas Taylor’s ‘Gargantis’. Well. What a flurry of excitement there was! There were definitely a lot of people in the YKNR community who’d adored ‘Malamander’…
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The LGBTQI+ community across the world celebrate Pride month (June each year) in all manner of different ways. I celebrate most occasions with books (and cake), so I’m celebrating with 50+ books which I believe are important additions to your home and school libraries. Diverse texts play a crucial role…
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Books are one of the best ways I know for children to learn about nature, issues of the environment, and sustainability in general. While there is much to be said about learning and exploring in nature, there is also much to be gained from exploring words, images and ideas in worthy non-fiction…
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Isn’t it lovely when you meet a ‘celebrity’ in real life and they are exactly as you imagined them? ChickPea and I were fortunate enough to meet Costa Georgiadis, host of ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’ and the garden gnome on ‘Get Grubby TV’, when he came to my mum’s school recently.…
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