Book of the Week: Daisy Eat Your Peas

The Grimsdell Children’s Library Book of the Week has been chosen by one of our new Junior Librarians, Mia from 2RM. She recommends Daisy Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray.

Mia’s reason for her selection is:

“This is one of my favourite books because it is VERY funny! I also like it because one of my special friends is also called Daisy!”

We hope you agree! This fiction book is available to borrow from our school library.

Mrs Harvey would also recommend this book. It is a brilliantly illustrated story to share and is a real ‘page turner’. This is a wickedly funny book about dinner time, which will appeal to fussy eating children and their despairing parents everywhere!

There is a lovely form of personification at the beginning of the book, when the peas are described as “ganging up” on Daisy. The book follows a very simple, yet extremely comedic pattern, where the response from Daisy is always the same, “I don’t like peas”.

Superficially, this book may appear to be just a whimsical read, but there are a lot of techniques and skills that adults can utilise when reading this to children. For example, it follows a very structured, sequential pattern. The sequential element is so strong that it allows methods of predictability from children; when they shout out, “I don’t like peas” they are predicting what Daisy is going to say.

This story is great for language learning because it allows readers to focus on daily routine, places in a town and of course, food and emotions. It also introduces children to the genre of persuasive writing. The purpose, structure and language features in this book are fundamental aspects of persuasive texts. The story enables you to explore and identify the language feature of persuasive texts, e.g. how word choice can be used to strengthen opinion. It encourages the reader to make predictions about what can happen. I wonder if you correctly guessed the ending of the story …?

Library Display: Emoji Reads

Junior Librarians, Simran and Charlie from 2YM, have been busy putting together their Emoji Reads for our special library display. They have created a varied list which I am sure will encourage other library users to read their recommendations. There is a lovely mixture of classical children’s authors and some new ones to add into the mix!

Their display consists of the following books:

Ketchup on Your Cornflakes? by Kes Gray,
Elliot Midnight Superhero by Anne Cottringer,
Supertato by Sue Hendra,
Funnybones by Janet and Alan Ahlberg,
Cinderella by Ursula Jones,
The Princess Who Had No Fortune by Ursula Jones,
Dinosaurs by Collins Fact Books,
Shark in the Dark by Nick Sharratt,
Super Natural Bugs by Leon Gray,
Pup, Pup And Away by Paw Patrol, Nickelodeon,
Rapunzel by Sarah Gibb,
The Children’s Step by Step Cook Book by Angela Wilkes,
Superworm by Julia Donaldson,
Kids National Geographic Magazine