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Library News and Book of the Week!

This week, we announced our very first group of Year 2 Junior Librarians. So many Year 2 children expressed an interest in becoming a Junior Librarian and I look forward to working with them all in due course.

Our Junior Librarians for this half of the term are: Jack, Moremi, Alfie, Tabitha, Nicholas and Martha. They have the responsibility for the library environment and choose our Book of the Week. Watch this space for their forthcoming suggestions!

Book of the Week

Our Grimsdell Library is child centred and so our Book of the Week is always chosen by one of our Junior Librarians. However, our new Junior Librarians have not yet had the opportunity to consider their favourite book, so I am delighted to be able to recommend one of my treasured stories!

I recommend ‘The Lion and the Mouse,’ beautifully illustrated and ‘retold’ by Jerry Pinkney.

The story is one of the Aesop fables and is a wordless book. I have shared this story with our Year 1 classes during their library session this week.

I have chosen a wordless book to share, to highlight the  importance of illustration and the vital role pictures play in developing the reading comprehension skills of our pupils.

A well-rounded reader needs good comprehension skills and this includes remembering what has already happened and predicting what may happen next. Wordless picture books are great for encouraging a child’s ability to infer what is happening in the story.

Children need to practice retelling stories in interesting and exciting ways. Sharing a wordless book allows adults to model storytelling techniques making connections, predicting and questioning. With consistent practice, children’s independent responses will become more natural and detailed.

Wordless picture books invite children to become an active participant in the story. They encourage children to tell a story rather than being confined by the text on the page. It encourages the development of a child’s imagination – critical for authentic creative writing tasks.

Children’s Author of the Week

This week’s focus is on illustration and so with this in  mind, I have selected Emily Gravett as our Children’s Author of the Week.

If you (and your child) are not familiar with her work, then I encourage you to step into her world of wonderful story telling. She has a rare talent for creating exceptional books for children.

The winner of two Kate Greenaway Awards, her skill and wit are second to none as she pushes the boundaries and wrings maximum fun and detail from every page. Her distinctive illustrations always bring the unexpected into stories and injects them with delightful humour. Her illustrations encourage children to think beyond the text and explore concepts and characterisation which enriches the story telling experience.

We have a wonderful collection of her stories in our library which are available for all of our Grimsdell children to borrow.

Happy Reading

Mrs Harvey