Spineless Classics

I’ve spoken before about creating a print rich environment – surrounding your children with print in all forms. Well I’ve just added the most amazing print form to my library –  a Spineless Classic. I may be slightly overexcited.

A Spineless Classic is a whole book on a single sheet. An art print on which, up close, you can read the full and complete text of a classic work. I love the idea of literature as art – combines two of my great loves! The text of the posters is pin-sharp, 4 point which is legible to the naked eye (if you have 20/20 vision!). There are currently over 70 classic adult and child texts available from the Australian website, including the ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘Peter Rabbit’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Peter Pan’. To see the full range visit the website here.

We’ve been reading ‘The Secret Garden’ as part of a ‘Readers Cup’ competition, so ‘The Secret Garden’ was the obvious choice of print for school, although we are also going to add some of the others below to our collection and swap them around every few months.

Le Petit Prince

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The students helped to create a mini indoor garden (that astro turf is used year in year out – best display item ever!) around our framed print and we’ve added some magnifying glasses for a bit of fun. In encouraging story in all its forms, we have included some copies of the book in print form for the students to borrow, we have the audio playing some lunchtimes and are thinking we might do a lunchtime movie viewing later in the year. Our fab fairystool mushrooms are from Oh My Giddy Aunt. Full credit for the idea of creaing the garden around the print must go to XYZ; my mother and XYZ have shaped me into the (slightly left of normal) teacher librarian that I am today. XYZ also trained up my partner in crime/teacher librarianship – the wonderful Jackie.

What a fabulous way to have one of your favourite books on your wall as a piece of art! Sadly this is not my child’s bedroom, but if I had discovered Spineless Classics earlier on, PudStar would have had ‘Peter Rabbit’ as the art in her room!