Australia! Story Country - Book Parade and Awards

Book Week Parade and Awards 2016

This week at Beaumont Road we held a celebratory culmination of our emphasis upon the importance and pleasure of reading and the award winning Australian children's books with a "Book Parade!"  The Children’s Book Council of Australia awards the prestigious 2016 CBCA Book of the Year Awards, recognizing the depth of talent in Australian children’s literature.  Here is a link to the Children's Book Council of Australia:



Children's Book Council of Australia

First - I want to introduce you to our fabulous Beaumont Road Teacher Librarian, Brooke Muddell.  

Brooke was responsible for planning and organizing our 2016 Australia - Story Country activities this year.  She helped our children increase their love of reading with guest authors, special contests, assemblies, and of course - the parade!  Brooke is a 2009 graduate with her undergraduate degree and six years of teaching in various positions.  She then completed a two year Masters degree as a Teacher Librarian in 2015.  She has had a very successful year at Beaumont Road - the students, parents, and teachers love Brooke - she has been a great addition to the school!  

Here is what Brooke says about her job - "I have a passion for reading, and I love helping children learn to love it too, and helping them find lots of good literature, including non-fiction, based on their interests.  Book parade is a great way to encourage children to talk about literature and books that they love to read.  By dressing up they can have fun with the books!"

I have so enjoyed working and learning with Brooke this year!

Here are some photos from our Book Parade this week:

Teachers Ready for the Parade!

My Teammates, Mary-Ellen, Ella, and Jenny

Here is some information from the Children's Book Council of Australia about its purpose:

The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) is a not for profit, volunteer run organisation which aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians. The CBCA presents annual awards to books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature.

Established in 1945, the Children’s Book Council of Australia was founded at a time when Australian children’s books were few, and Australian authors and illustrators were virtually unknown. In 1946 the CBCA established annual book awards to promote books of high literary and artistic quality. These awards are now the most influential and highly respected in Australia.

Each year, across Australia, the CBCA brings children and books together celebrating Children’s Book Week. Throughout the year, the CBCA works in partnership with authors, illustrators, publishers, booksellers and other organisations in the children’s book world to bring words, images and stories into the hearts and minds of children and adults.

Australian children’s literature enriches our nation and reaches children across the world through international editions.

Our Vision is to be the premier voice on literature for young Australians and to inform, promote critical debate, foster creative responses, and engage with and encourage Australian authors and illustrators to produce quality literature. Through these efforts, we are nurturing a literate, educated and creative society.

Our Mission is to achieve positive social impact by engaging the community with literature for young Australians.

The CBCA is made up of state branches, that work to promote literature and literacy in their state. The branches each send a representative to the judging panel for the Book of the Year awards.

Members of the National Board of the CBCA are nominated by their state branches.

In 2015, the CBCA celebrated 70 years of promoting and supporting the best of Australian literature for young people.

Here are some of the award winning Australian children's books that we have shared with our children over the past few weeks - I would highly urge my US friends to look into getting these books for your schools, as well!

Here are a few that my children have loved:

Now - since I have shared some high quality children's literature, let me now focus for a bit on Australian adult literature that is worth taking a look at!

Mitch and I have tried to focus our reading efforts this year on Australian authors, novels that take place in Australia, informational books about Australia, and historical fiction with Australian ties.  It has been fun to focus our efforts on Australia while we are here, and we have found some incredible authors and literature that we highly recommend!

First - Mitch LOVES Tim Winton!  Here are some of his books that Mitch recommends:

Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families flee their rural homes to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in the Perth suburb of West Leederville. The two families are contrasts to each other; the devoutly religious Lambs find meaning in hard work and God’s grace, while the Pickles hope for good luck and don't share the Lambs' appetite for hard work. Though initially resistant to each other, their search and journey for meaning in life concludes with the uniting of the two families, with many characters citing this as the most important aspect of their lives. As a novel, Cloudstreet has a circular structure, opening and ending with a shared celebratory family picnic - a joyous occasion which, ironically, is also the scene of Fish’s long sought-after death or return to the water. The novel is narrated effectively by flashback "in the seconds it takes to die" by Fish Lamb, or the 'spiritual' omniscient Fish Lamb, free of his restricting retarded state. As such, the novel gives a voice to social minorities, the Australian working class and the disabled.

Georgie, the heroine of the book, becomes fascinated in watching a stranger attempting to poach fish in an area where nobody can maintain secrets for very long; disillusioned with her relationship with the local fisherman legend Jim Buckridge, she contrives a meeting with the stranger and soon passion runs out of control between two bruised and emotionally fragile people.

The secret quickly becomes impossible to hide and Jim wants revenge, whilst the smuggler hikes north via Wittenoom (out of respect for his father who died of mesothelioma in the town) and Broome to an island off the remote coast of Kimberley beyond Kununurra to escape a confrontation. His subsequent struggles to survive in the hostile environment and, knowing that he must try to literally cover his tracks, give this book its gripping denouement.

On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrill seeking and barely adolescent boys fall into the enigmatic thrall of veteran big-wave surfer Sando. Together they form an odd but elite trio. The grown man initiates the boys into a kind of Spartan ethos, a regimen of risk and challenge, where they test themselves in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs, pushing each other to the edges of endurance, courage, and sanity. But where is all this heading? Why is their mentor’s past such forbidden territory? And what can explain his American wife’s peculiar behavior? Venturing beyond all limits—in relationships, in physical challenge, and in sexual behavior—there is a point where oblivion is the only outcome. Full of Winton’s lyrical genius for conveying physical sensation, Breath is a rich and atmospheric coming-of-age tale from one of world literature’s finest storytellers.

And now - here are a few that I have read and would recommend:

I love Kate Grenville - I have read The Secret River, and Sarah Thornhill which are both realistic historical fiction works (which I love) about the early years of the colonization of Australia.

I have also recently read the following which I would recommend, as well:

In a district of the city of Harbin, a haven for White Russian families since Russia′s Communist revolution, Alina Kozlova must make a heartbreaking decision if her only child, Anya, is to survive the final days of World War II.

White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia. Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again?

Rich in incident and historical detail, this is a compelling and beautifully written tale about yearning and forgiveness.

Finally - what I am reading NOW - 

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them. 

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss. 

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

And now - I am at a very exciting part of the novel - so, I need to go so that I can READ!