CMIS Evaluation Primary Focus

Used with permission HarperCollins (ABC Books)

Recently published is a must-have resource for all school libraries and parents’ bookshelves.  Entitled 1001 Children’s Books you must read before you grow up, it includes one page reviews (many by well-known authors) of the best of children’s and adolescents’ books from different countries and from different periods of history.  These are grouped into broad age bands: 0-3, 3+, 5+, 8+ and 12+, and most are illustrated with the original cover art.

The preface, written by Quentin Blake, and the introduction, written by the general editor, Julia Eccleshare, are well worth reading.  Blake takes us inside the illustrator’s head and gives a valuable insight into how he dialogues with the text, with the prospective reader in mind, to produce his pictures. He also spotlights the professional concerns which authors face in writing children’s books. Eccleshare writes about the selection as being “a lesson in history and cultural change as much as it is a journey of literary discovery.  Snapshots of attitudes to children, expectations of them, and messages thought suitable for them are all held within the pages of these stories.” (p.11)

Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins’ My Place has been republished to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of this special title which encompasses so much that is innately Australian.

Covering a wide range of topics for use in the classroom, such as Place and Space, Social Justice, Culture and identity this much-loved book has been updated with a timeline that carries the history through to 2008. It can be used across the curriculum in all phases of development.

To complement the book Walker books has produced the Classroom Ideas PDF available from their website.

DET teachers could use this book in conjunction with the resources available through the K-10 Syllabus – The Northbridge History Project and Time Lines and Pathways to the Past: Find Yourself in History