CBCA Short list companion book ideas

PLCC AH PD = Primary Libraries: Creative Collaboration After Hours Professional Development

Exploring the CBCA shortlist - discuss the shortlisted books from various categories and provide some information about how we will be approaching a specific book with our students.  Will we focus on engagement, visual literacy, text analysis?

Tonight I was pleased to participate in a professional development session for Teacher-Librarians focusing on ideas for using the CBCA Book of the Year short listed titles.

As a 2021-23 judge I am not able to comment on any of the six Picture Book or six New Illustrator titles in detail until after book week so the focus of this post will be on other books you could share with a group in your library to extend your discussion of each short listed book.

When you think about activities to extend children's understanding and appreciation of a book you are sharing, in my view, it is very important to design activities which link back to the book and this link should be made explicit to your students.  I don't see any real purpose in colouring pages or find-a-word sheets except as busy work.  If time permits it is also terrific if you can read a short listed book to your students more than once.  (As a judge I read each of the notables and short listed books over ten times each!),

Some things to explore: Talk about the title, the choice of font, end papers, use of white space (picture books), the placement of illustrations on the page, the blurb, the colour palette, the implied audience, the title page and half title page, and can we explore other books by this author or illustrator? I'm sure you can add to this list. For example - Have you thought about the book shape? Why is this important? 

Questions to ask before reading:

What do you think might happen in this story? 

What makes you think this? 

Does this look like a book you would borrow or want to read? Explain?

Possible ideas for questions to ask after reading: 

What was your favourite part of the book? 

Who was your favourite character? 

What was the most interesting thing you learned from the book?

Does anything in this book seem familiar to you?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

Would you have ended the book differently?

Can you think of any other books like this one?

I suggest one way to explore the short listed picture books could be to look at companion titles but please note I have not limited these to Australian books because we are so lucky in Australia - speaking English we have access to the best books published in UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

The CBCA winning picture book in 1982 was Sunshine by Jan Ormerod. 

I love the link to 2022 where we once again have a wordless book to explore - The Boy and the Elephant by Freya Blackwood.

Books to share after reading The Boy and the Elephant. You could focus on other wordless books such as these:

Here are links to my posts: Stormy, Dandelion's Dream, Aquarium, The Midnight Fair. You are sure to have other wordless books in your library. Here is my extensive Pinterest. And here is a link to the IBBY Silent book project. 

Or you could read books about community action and the action of the individual to save trees or preserve the natural environment:

Here are links to my post: The Curious Garden

Blue Flower by Sonya Hartnett illustrated by Gabriel Evans

Companion reads which explore the themes of individuality, confidence, shyness, self esteem, fitting in and acceptance of self:

Here are links to my previous posts: Maxine; Found You; The Blue Songbird.

Stellaphant by James Folley has so many levels of meaning to explore. Notice the sheep janitor; the white male gatekeeper and managers with their identical ties and hostile reaction to Stella's dream and find the pot plant and watch it grow as time moves on and Stella keeps hold of her dream. You could explore books about girl power too. Take a look at the A Mighty Girl web pages. 

Link to my posts Mighty Min; Beautiful; Animals in space.

As judges we felt The Inheritance by Armin Greder is a book more suited to a High School context. 

I suggest exploring other books by Armin Greder and also planning your discussion of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Please note Joseph's Yard is a very old book (1969) and so it is long out of print but it does have the most amazing illustrations. Here is my post about This thing called life?

Just One Bee is another book that rewards very close study. There are so many tiny details in the illustrations and this might be the first time your students have encountered a picture book with a dystopian landscape. 

For this book I have suggested some picture books and a couple of middle grade novels.

Links to blog posts: How to Bee; Where the river runs Gold; Bee; The Thing.  For older students in Grade 6 I also highly recommend you try to find Sparrow Girl by Sara Pennypacker (2009). There are so many terrific books you can read about bees. Here is my Pinterest. You could also look at The Duck and the Darklings by Glenda Millard illustrated by Stephen Michael King. 

Iceberg is a book that you could easily compare with other books about Antarctica comparing illustration styles and the depiction of this icy environment.

Here are a few books I had in my former library which I would share alongside Iceberg:

I hope you have explored the CBCA short list page. There are links to teachers notes and book reviews and most importantly our judging critique for each book - this would be fabulous to share with older students after your class has studied each book and perhaps formed their own judgements.

More possible questions from What We Do all Day to use that ensure you keep referring to the book under discussion. Of course you would never use all of these - just pick the ones that will work the the text you are exploring and of course the questions which will elicit the best discussion from your group of learners.

• What do you think the author wanted us to take away from this book?
• Describe your favourite part of the book.
• Was there anything in the book that surprised you?
• If you could be a character in the book for one day, who would you chose to be? Why?
• If this book was turned into a movie, which actors would like to see play each character?
• If one of the characters could come to your house for dinner, who would you like to have visit?
• If you had to pick one colour to describe the book, what colour would you pick? Why?
• If you had to describe this book in one word, what word would you choose?
• How did the setting of the story impact the characters?
• Were you satisfied with the ending of the story? Why?
• Were there any new words that you learned from reading the book?
• If you could ask the author one question, what would you ask?
• What questions do you have after reading the book?
• Do you have a friend who you think would like this book? Who is it? Why?