Recommendations

Great picture book authors I recommend (there's no order whatsoever, sorry about that):

- Emily Gravett: The Odd Egg, Wolf won’t bite, Monkey and Me, Again (Infantil) Wolves (both Infantil and Primary 1 and 2).

- Oliver Jeffers: Stuck, The Incredible Book-eating Boy, The Day the Crayons Quit, The Great Paper Paper and The New Jumper (for Primary 1, 2 or 3), How to Catch a Star, Lost and Found and Up and Down (Infantil).

- Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler: The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Zog, The Smartest Giant in Town, Monkey puzzle, The Snail and the Whale, Stickman and Room on the Broom (Primary 1 and 2)

- Polly Dumbar: Penguin and Tilly and Friends book collection (Infantil)

- Eric Carle: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear (mmm, I think Eric Carle is the illustrator for this book, but not the author), The Mixed-up Chameleon (up until Primary 1).

- Roald Dahl: The Enormous Crocodile, The Giraffe the Pelly and Me (Years 2, 3, 4), Magic Finger, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Twits (Years 3, 4 and 5), James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Revolting Rhymes, Dirty Beasts (Years 5 and 6. The last ones are poetry books).

- Michael Rosen: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (E.I. 5 and Primary 1). He also has books and poems for older kids!

- Jon Klassen: I want my hat back, This is not my hat (they seem simple, but the humour is subtle so I would suggest Primary).

- Martin Waddell: Owl babies (Infantil), Farmer duck (E.I. 5 and Primary 1)

- Dr. Seuss: Green Eggs and Ham, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, Fox in Socks, Ten Apples Up On Top! (ideal to start reading real books in the classroom with Primary 2 and 3. Not many words, repetition and humour (quite absurd, hehe)), Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (two classics for older kids in Primary). There are a lot more from this author!

- David Walliams: they call him the next Roald Dahl. He has great (difficult) books for Year 5 and 6. At school we recommend them to children that have a very high level of English. You can find his books in Catalan and Spanish too. Here are my favourites: Billionaire Boy, Gangsta Granny, Mr. Stink, The Boy in the Dress and Ratburger. Critical citizens books, no doubt about it.

Other classics you need to know:
- Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell (Infantil)
- Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury (2 to 3 year-olds)
- Where's Spot? by Eric Hill (2 to 3 year-olds)
- Meg and Mog by Helen Nichol and Jan Pienkowski (ideal Halloween story for Infantil and Primary 1)
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (ok, so maybe I wouldn't use this in the English classroom, but it's a must have book!)
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff (up until Primary 1)
- Olivia by Ian Falconer (all the kids love this pig. E.I. 5 and Primary 1)
- The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman (a bit perverse, hehe, Primary 2 and 3)
- Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (another classic for Infantil)
- Elmer by David McKee (E.I. 4 to Year 2. You can use it to talk about people being different, but I use it to introduce Carnival).

Mind map

Here are the mind maps we made together in the session with your ideas related to Children's Literature. Sorry it took me so long to post them.

Think about it

The first time I read this passage in John Stephens' "Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction" I was doumbfounded by the implications of what it meant. It made me think deeply about what children read (or listen to) and how that might have an impact on them. How about you?

“Writing for children is usually purposeful, its intention being to foster in the child reader a positive appreciation of some socio-cultural values which, it is assumed, are shared by author and audience. These values include contemporary morality and ethics, a sense of what is valuable in the culture’s past (what a particular contemporary social formation regards as the culture’s centrally important traditions), and aspirations about the present and the future. Since a culture’s future is, to put it crudely, invested in its children, children’s writers often take upon themselves the task of trying to mould audience attitudes into “desirable” forms, which can mean either an attempt to perpetuate certain values or to resist socially dominant values which particular writers oppose.” (Stephens, 1992)