This afternoon I was browsing through the catalogue of the wonderful book shop from South Australia called Pegi Williams and I made a wonderful discovery - Little Bo Peep's Library book has been republished. The original came out in 1998 and the new edition will be available in November. I have put the new and old covers above. This is a book I have often shared in my school library. If you know someone who is a Teacher-Librarian this book would be a perfect gift and if you have a young friend or relative who has joined their local library I suggest you pop this book into their Christmas stocking.
Most Australian Primary school libraries use the Dewey Decimal system as a way to organise their non fiction collection. There are arguments from time to time as to whether this is the best system. Some people use genre labels and others group subjects but for me this system does work. There are times, however, when it can be a little complex for students. Take a look at these examples
Horses 599.7 Horses on farms 636.1 Horse riding 798
Fish 597 Fish as pets 639.37 Fishing 799
You can see from this that when a young library user asks for a book about horses or fish it is important to ask more questions.
In Little Bo Peep's Library Book this idea is used to full effect.
Little Bo Peep asks the question - Where will she find the sheep?
Little Boy Blue sends her to the library and Mother Goose, the helpful librarian, sends her to Lamb (in the cooking section). Near those shelves she finds the Big Bad Wolf. She asks him if he knows how she might find a book about 'how to find sheep'. The Big Bad Wolf directs her to the crime section. Sitting in the crime section Little Bo Peep meets the Queen of Hearts and the queen tells Bo to go the natural history section. Luckily that is where she finds the perfect book with the title "How to find sheep" by A.Shepherd.
"So Little Bo Peep took that book to the librarian's desk ... and the librarian stamped it with her stamping thing."
And yes Bo Peep does find her sheep but your young reading companion might just spot them a little earlier than our tiny story hero. The magical thing about this book is that it contains pull out books. I do hope the new edition includes these too.
The book opens with this cute date due slip which you can lift up!
Here is Mother Goose - the librarian.
One of the little books you can pull off the library shelves and YES they are 'real' books. I have always love the idea of a book inside a book etc.
