Give the gift of reading this Christmas

Reading is the greatest gift - it opens up so many new worlds. The children in your life probably already have easy access to this gift, but could you help some of the children who don't this Christmas? Here are a few suggestions you could consider.

National Literacy Trust - Gift of Reading

Many children across the UK do not have books of their own, nor are they likely to receive any for Christmas this year. Donating just £7 will buy a book for one such child.

Blackwell's - Children's Giving Tree

Giving Trees in the Children's Departments of a number of Blackwell's shops are adorned with gift tags with requests from children who might not otherwise receive any presents (in association with local charities). Customers choose a tag and the booksellers wrap the requested book and deliver it to the child in time for Christmas. You don't have to live near a shop - gifts can be purchased online for £5.99 or £9.99.

Finally, Playing by the Book lists 125 Literacy / Book charities that you could choose from. Happy giving!          

Merry Quizmas? Book related activities for kids

Merry Christmas one and all! If you have children to entertain, here are a few book-related activities which might occupy them for, ooh, two minutes at least!

So this is Quizmas comes from Book Trust and is described as "fiendishly difficult". I wouldn't say that exactly, but I only scored 14/20 so must try harder! There are loads of other quizzes onsite too.

The Guardian children's book pages are also good for activities, including Christmassy ones. They have a quiz too, Christmas presents in children's fiction. I did even worse here, 4/10, which brought the message "Ho Ho Ho, oh no! You need to start reading more Christmas books!" You can also find a lesson in how to draw Father Christmas from Jessica Ahlberg on the same site. 

National Literacy Trust has a whole page of  Christmas activities, some with prizes.

Finally, Scottish Book Trust, the Herald and Turnberry Resort have teamed up to launch a story writing competition for children in three age groups, 5-8, 9-12 and 13-17. The themes are "The Holiday Secret", "Strangers in Town" or "New Beginnings" and the closing date is 14th January, so the Christmas holiday is the perfect time to enter.

I think this will be the last post for 2012 so Merry Christmas once again, Happy New Year and see you in 2013.

Getting books to kids at Christmas

Any books in these parcels?

I don't need to tell readers of this blog about the joy of books and the importance of getting children reading, nor that many children do not have the advantages of growing up in a house full of books or with parents that take them to libraries. Libraries, are of course, very important - for one of the best, recent arguments of this, read Jeanette Winterson's impassioned piece in the Guardian - but there's something wonderful about holding a book that you actually own, especially if it's your first. I've come across a couple of initiatives that aim to put books in the hands of children who otherwise wouldn't have any this Christmas.

Books for Kids for Christmas is linked to the charity Children First.
Last year they raised over £3300 to buy books for vulnerable Scottish children at Christmas, as a result of which 380 children and young people received a book of their very own from Santa. The appeal runs until Sunday 2nd December. Nicola Morgan writes about Blackwell's Children's Book Tree - you can join in by phone if you don't live in Edinburgh, Oxford or Cambridge where they have branches - from which you choose a request from a child in difficult circumstances, and that child receives the book for Christmas. These are just two ideas - Zoe at Playing by the Book lists 125 book and literacy charities and, going off the book topic altogether, did you know that John Lewis has a gift list so that children in refuges get Christmas presents? List no 522953.

Happy giving!

Happy Christmas

Jordanhill Library closes at 5pm on 23rd December. The University officially opens again on 5th January, but we have 3 open days in between: Thursday-Friday 29th and 30th December and Wednesday 4th January. See our opening hours page for full details.

I'm leaving you with these festive images courtesy of Bridgeman Education:

Many thanks to Bridgeman - very suitable for a children's literature blog. A Happy Christmas to one and all.

 

Christmas is coming....

It is, I'm afraid - we are already stamping January as a due date in library books, and classes in school will already be learning about Christmas. There's a small display upstairs of children's books and media items - to find more, just search for Christmas in SUPrimo (probably best to use "Advanced Search" and "keywords anywhere").

Some other resources that I have come across that might help are:

Richard and Judy’s Children's Christmas Book Club 2011 (via Booktrust).

Christmas resources for primary schools - activities linked to Christmas around the world, from webanywhere.

3 links for creating a festive classroom - also from webanywhere.

TES teaching resources.

Eric Carle's blog

Thanks to Tidy Books whose tweet alerted me to Eric Carle's blog and his lovely post about Christmas memories from his childhood in Germany. See also the official Eric Carle website and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. And of course we've got lots of his books in Jordanhill Library - see a few below.

Children's books that tell the story of Christmas

A post from Trevor Cairney with extensive reviews of Christmas books for children under the headings:

1. Books based closely on the biblical story of Jesus's birth
2. Books that use the Christmas theme to offer moral lessons
3. Stories based on Christmas traditions

I'll refer you back to my previous post about Christmas too.

Christmas books for kids

I was horrified to see Tesco had their Christmas tree up at the weekend and it was still Halloween. However, it got me thinking that if students are going out into school and teaching about Christmas they will probably be starting to look for books now. Here's the list of what we have on our catalogue - it's arranged with the newest ones at the top and is a mix of fiction and non-fiction. You can refine the search by choosing one of the other subject limits down the right hand side or, when you find a title you like, clicking on its subject headings to find more the same. There are too many to start making recommendations, but you can find those on other websites, e.g. Word Pool's Choosing Children's Books page has a section on Christmas.