While teaching in the early nineties, I loved books. I regularly headed to the bookshop to see what was on offer.  I had an extensive personal collection, which I supplemented with titles from both the school and local library.  I had lists of recommendations from Uni where I did an elective in Children’s Literature and I had recommendations from fellow teachers as to what to read.  I was all over kid’s books.  But then I left teaching and ventured into the world of business.

I only recently returned to teaching after a 15 year break.  While I was not teaching I was running my own business and being mum to two wonderful kids.  While they were young we read children’s books all the time. Books from my collection as a teacher, books from the local library that we visited every week and books that were sent to me to review (as part of a website I ran).  I read and they read, and then we read some more.  It was wonderful.  Then life became busy.  My kids started to read more and more by themselves, local library visits became school library visits and my workload (running my own business) meant I had little time to read the children’s books I so enjoyed.  I still read of course, but more adult crime, with a drop of YA fiction more than anything else (though I do confess, that most of the YA books I was reading were far better than the ‘adult’ ones).

Now that I have returned to teaching and embarked on my journey to be a TL I am revisiting children’s books and loving every minute.  The school library I currently work at has an amazing collection.  Every week I leave the library with a stack of books in hand.  I am currently working through the PRC books for Stage 3, while grabbing interesting titles off the shelves when I spot them.  My haul for the holidays includes:

Though this is of course not all.  I am loving that I can discover the numerous titles that have been released in the last 15 years, and extremely grateful that the TL I job share with is incredibly good at selecting amazing books for our students to read.  I know I have missed a lot in the last few years, especially once my kids hit high school and no longer read children’s books, but I am looking forward to catching up!

Moving forward I think there are many ways we can keep abreast of what is happening in children’s literature.  Social media is great – my professional Twitter and Facebook account keeps track of a number of book publishers, authors (if you don’t already follow Jackie French – she is amazing) and reviewers such as Inside A Dog.  I also follow ASLA, the Children’s Book Council of Australia and others such as Picture Book Book Club and Story Box Library.  I plan to keep track of suggestions on the PRC booklists, visit my local library and bookshops regularly and of course, talk to my students about what they want to read!

Just Read: The Prince Who Shrank by Kylie Fornasier and Annie White