A day to remember by Jackie French illustrated by Mark Wilson

Huge congratulations to Jackie French for all her research and for telling us the story of ANZAC day - ANZAC Day as a commemoration. Equally Marc Wilson has clearly used primary sources as an inspiration for his drawings and illustrated photographs.  The images and text are a perfect partnership.

This book is sure to be given an award by the CBC as you can see it is short listed in the Picture book category.

I am not going to go into a lot of detail about A Day to remember because it covers so much of our history from 1915 to the present.  Over the course of this chronological text you can read about various conflict situations and wars that Australia has participated in and read about how our commemorations have evolved in cities and in country towns.

"Across the world, in places where Anzacs served or suffered, remembrances are held."

Over the last fifteen years a large number of excellent picture books have been published which we read to our students around the time of ANZAC Day.  Here is a list of some that are perfect for our youngest students.

Here are some teaching notes for this important book.

I am going to quote from the back cover :

"Each year on 25 April the nation stops to remember.  This is the story of that day.  This beautiful picture book traces the story of Anzac Day through the last century. From those who first stood in silence at dawn, and wore rosemary or poppies for remembrance, to children of today who wear their grandparents' medals, an ever-increasing number in Australia and New Zealand, and around the world pause to remember the first Anzacs landing at Gallipoli."