Owl Babies

The Edible Book Festival has come to a close and the winners have been announced and....and...!

I didn't win. ah tarnation. ;)

It was a pretty much impossible task given the quality of the entries; all of the 74 were in with a shout frankly. The first prize went to an incredibly detailed and beautifully crafted version of Emily Gravett's 'The Odd Egg' with definite wow factor. Congratulations to all the prize winners; 'good bake' as Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would say.

'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Patrick Benson  has always been a favourite in this house. Firstly owls are amongst my favourite and my best; who doesn't love an owl? This, extremely large in the stoneware flesh, one was always my first choice exhibit on regular childhood visits to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

And then one of the main characters in 'Owl Babies' is called Bill and, as we know from my last post, namesakes are always a good shortcut to garner popularity.

But 'Owl Babies' doesn't need any gimmicks to make it a lovely read...and probably doesn't need any introductions from me to you either. It's a quiet classic that has almost certainly found its way into your home already. A proper snuggle-down-and-listen bedtime story to soothe separation anxiety and give a great excuse for some extra mum cuddles.

Three baby owls wait for their mother to return from her night's hunting in a dark wood. As their bravado wanes and the wait seems longer, they huddle together for comfort. Sibling dynamics are beautifully observed from big sister superiority to little brother vulnerability but ultimately the family are united against whatever might  lurk in the darkness.

Mother owl returns; "and she came!", tension dissipates and cosy order is reinstated. The very gentlest of first scare stories for the under fives.

I decided to attempt the cover for the edible book festival partly on the basis that I couldn't find any intimidating versions of it online already and partly because I had a sudden inspiration that I could make them out of cupcakes. This had the advantage of not requiring to much engineering on my part and also we had a school cake sale coming that afternoon so I figured I could just sprinkle them with smarties and sell them anyway if it all went horribly wrong.

It turned out to be fun! My plan to use the orangey bit inside a jaffa cake to make the beaks didn't quite work out as planned but otherwise industrial quantites of buttercream icing hid a multitude of sins. I was particularly proud that the owls genuinely looked a bit scared when I had finished.

As well they might. Taking them to the school cake sale to be torn apart in a flurry of feathers by a hundred grabbing hands made me feel a bit queasy; enough to turn one into a vegecakeatarian.: 'Owl Babies- Version X Rated- When The Mother Didn't Come'...

The original

The cake tribute

'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell, illus. Patrick Benson, pub. Walker isbn  978-0744531671

Learning to read diversions; Franklin Watts

Why do reading schemes have to look like and be so obviously reading schemes? Why are they so distinguishable by both adult and child at 20 paces from 'proper' books? Leveled and colour coded to provide a point of instant playground comparison. 'What level are you on then?' is something I've heard children ask each other on numerous occasions; great for those who wish to swank but confidence destroying of course for those who are getting stuck.
The great thing in theory about volunteering with VRH and working one to one with developing readers is that we use real picture books and not readers. The children are free to choose whatever they fancy. The problem with this of course is that what they fancy can be frustratingly difficult to decode and then they get discouraged.

What I would like, please, is a range of beautiful books of different shapes and sizes, illustrated by all our best and lovely illustrators that beginning readers might be able to pick up and access without knowing they were 'doing' reading practice. Can't we get a bit sneakier and more imaginative in designing these objects? I sense the US, with Dr Seuss as a founding father (put him on Mount Rushmore surely?) is better at this; Arnold Lobel and now apparently fab pigeon-on-bus man Mo Willems spring to mind. Julia Donaldson's 'Songbirds' are good but should just be the starting point. I am trying to form my own collection of titles where I find them (Vivienne Schwartz's 'There are cats in this book' has proved a great book giving day purchase for VRH box incidently) but it remains a bit hit and miss.

One of the ranges in the library that I find most useful in this respect (although they still look too uniform not to be clocked as work by the kids) are those published by Franklin Watts; Tadpoles, Leapfrogs, Reading Corner and particularly the more complex Hopscotch have all made for pretty good foraging. They're often genuinely funny, they use a good mix of illustrators and they cover a great variety of styles and topics from traditional fairy tales to some imaginative historical titles: It's hard to resist a book called 'Henry 8th Has to Choose'.

I actually even bought a couple; 'Beowulf and Grendel' is by Martin Waddell and  illustrated by Graham Howells and is part of the Hopscotch 'adventure' range which also covers King Arthur, Robin Hood and Blackbeard amongst others. It tickled me that it was possible to introduce one's children to the roots of Anglo Saxon story telling in under 500 words. It's really bloodthirsty. The boys love it.

'Grendel filled a huge, dragon-skin bag with human flesh. Blood dripped from the bag as he dragged it back to his lair.'

I'm not going to subject you to the picture that accompanies that text, you might be eating a biscuit by your computer or something. But it's pretty cool.

oh go'arn then...you can have a bit of Thursday gore.

That'll make them want to pick it up and carry on won't it?

'Beowulf and Grendel' by Martin Waddell, illustrated byGraham Howells, pub. Franklin Watts isbn 978-0-7496-8563-8