It's Monday: What Are You Reading?

Once again, I'm joining in with Jen from Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers and other bloggers who share the books they have read the past week.



The Stone Lion dreams of being real and running in the park opposite the library where he sits. When a young homeless girl and her baby brother take shelter beside him on a cold, snowy night he is destined to change his perspective.

 The Stone Lion is a story of emotional transformation that reads like a fable. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous, I literally couldn't stop myself from reaching out to touch the embossed title on the cover. The choice of colours and the dialogue make reading this book a calm and peaceful experience.




The scratchboard artwork in this book is visually stunning! The simple, poetic text provides evocative descriptions of an imminent thunderstorm on a farm. Blue on Blue would be a great book to share with Year 1 Science students studying observable changes in the sky (ACSSU019).




Paper Planes is based on the movie of the same name that has just come out at the cinemas this month. Twelve-year-old Dylan lives with his dad in a small town in outback Western Australia. He discovers he has a talent for folding paper planes and commences a journey to compete in the World Junior Paper Plane championships in Japan.

This very Australian book is written in third person and reads a little like a script. Accordingly, many paragraphs begin with a quick description of the setting. I loved the inclusion of colour photos from the movie and the step-by-step instructions provided in the back of the book that tell you how to fold a paper plane, it made me want to fold one straight away!




Wow, this beautifully written book takes the reader on an emotional roller-coaster. It is so heart-breaking, I definitely needed my box of tissues. I found the technique of telling the story through the alternating perspectives of Violet and Finch to be really powerful. It gave me so much detail and really brought the characters to life.

This book is for mature readers as it explores the real and serious issues of self-harm, mental illness and grief. I liked that there was a section in the back of the book that contains links to support organisations and websites, the edition I bought was even adapted for Australian and NZ audiences.

The Listening Walk

The Listening Walk by Paul Showers was originally published in 1961, but it is still relevant today. A young girl takes a listening walk around her neighbourhood with her father and tells about all the sounds she hears on the way. This would be a great anchor book for Year 1 physical science students learning about how sound can be produced by a range of sources and can be sensed (ACSSU020). After reading this book, students could then take a listening walk around their school so they can build their own personal connections. They could also make their own audio recording of sounds for other students to guess the source.

The Worm and What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

The Worm is the second book in Elise Gravel's Disgusting Critters series. It is a non-fiction picture book for lower primary readers which integrates basic factual information with cute cartoon illustrations and fun hand-drawn fonts. This series will be sure to appeal to even the most reluctant young readers and would be a great addition for Foundation and Year 1 classrooms exploring the needs and external features of living things in biological sciences. My seven-year-old son laughed out loud at the hilarious artwork, so I will be looking out for the other books in this series: The Fly, The Slug and The Rat, as well as the next two books The Spider and Head Lice which are due out next year.




I had only heard good things about Steve Jenkins books, but I had not ever actually read one myself, so I bought What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? You know a book is truly wonderful when you begin reading to one child and your other two children are drawn in by the excited giggling and they creep over to listen too! All three children delighted in guessing what animal each body part might belong to and they were very interested in the more detailed information provided at the end of the book. Who knew that horny devils could squirt blood from their eyes?