Book Week 2021
Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds
Term 3: August 21-27
2021 Poster by Shaun Tan
In this series of posts I hope to help Teacher-Librarians as they prepare to celebrate Book Week and more.
Slogan or Theme
Why not explore past slogans? CBCA call their slogans a theme but I prefer the term slogan - I tell students this is meant to be a 'catch phrase' to inspire reading and the exploration of books. I started in my Teacher-Librarian role in 1985 (Book Banquet) but Book Week had already been organised so my first slogan was Key into Books. We filled our library with very old keys on a display which we placed on the piano! The following year the slogan was Sail Away with Books. I was working in two school libraries and we filled the huge notice boards at both schools with waves in shades of blue and small folded paper boat fleets. The whole effect was terrific.
Slogans I have enjoyed: 2001 a Book Odyssey; Oceans of Stories; Reading Rocks!; Book Safari; Books light up our World and Find your treasure.
Merchandise - every year the CBCA produce posters and other merchandise such as badges and book marks. Here is the NSW CBCA Order Form.
Book Week Short List
Book Week (note the word week not day) consists of many parts. One important part is the exploration of the CBCA Short list titles. There are five categories. Thinking of your students you can select which books to read to each grade. I would explore the Early Childhood titles with K-2; Picture Book of Year with 3-6; and invite class teachers to read one of the Younger Reader titles to their class as a serial read aloud because time in the library is way to short to read a whole novel. It is also important to allow some time to explore the Eve Pownall titles which can often lead to further research.
This is my first of a series of Book Week posts. In a future post I will explore some short listed titles in more depth and make suggestions for companion reads. I will also explore the way you could include an author or illustrator study in your program.
As a starting point for the short list take a look at this in depth resource produced by the Ipswich Teacher-Librarians. It does include links to some of my posts about short listed titles.
You should also take a look at the amazing resources shared by the CBCA via the short list 2021 page. If you select the 'read more' button you will find the judges comments (100 words), a link to the Reading Time Review, and any teachers notes along with the publisher blurb and in some cases comments by the author and illustrator. This is a splendid resource.
Display Ideas
Many Teacher-Librarians have begun making Pinterest boards with ideas for displays.
Here are two I found but there are lots of others.
Another idea could be to make displays of books linked with the slogan. Take a look at this Pinterest curated by my friend from Kinderbookswitheverything. She takes each phrase from the slogan and expands it with book ideas. Old Worlds (Stone Ages; Ancient Egypt; Ancient Greece; Knights) New Worlds (Robots; Life in Space) Other Worlds (Fantasy).
Coming next
In my next post I plan to share some ideas which allow the children to think creatively, design and make, write and problem solve. I am not a fan of the dress up parade and prefer to make the focus of Book Week (it is a week) on books and reading. I have worked in low and high socio-economic school environments. I watched in despair as kids compete for the 'best' outfit; kids come in Disney costumes from chain stores; kids come as Harry Potter or Wally; and some kids have no home support and so spend a miserable day in their uniform.
Here are a few short-listed picture books from the past which I still love to read to classes:
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