Global Reading

Hello my name is Kelly and I am a Year 4 teacher from the UK. I blog over at the Daylight Explorers and I am reallyy excited to be here on the Global Glitter Tribe blog. I love books. I love sharing books with the pupils I teach. I love sharing books with fellow teachers. So it is with great excitement that I share some wonderful picture books that help us explore our wonderful world.

Firstly an absolutely charming wordless picture book called 'The Chicken Thief' by Beatrice Rodriguez. 

This book was originally published in France and can be used by pupils of all ages. I love the way it gets children thinking about stereotypes and I think it is a great text for developing storytelling with pupils. Rabbit, Chicken and Bear live in the forest when one day Fox kidnaps Chicken! The rest of the story follows the pursuit and eventual resolution. It is a lovely story which develops the children's skills of using inference and deduction. 

The next text I want to share is 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan.

 'The Arrival' is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images in a graphic novel. The pictures are stunning and tell the story of a man who leaves his family in an impoverished town to emigrate to a new land. Each picture examines a different part of his story, the places he goes and the people he meets. This is a moving story that will allow you and the class to explore a wide range of issues linked to immigration. 

My next books gets children thinking about the world as a village. In 'If the World Were a Village' by David J. Smith and Shelagh Armstrong the reader gets to explore the world as if it were of a village of 100 people. 

I love the idea of this story. It is very hard for children to imagine the world as a whole but when you imagine it is a village of 100 people it starts to become easier for children to understand. For example of the 100 people in the global village: 61 are from Asia, 13 are from Africa, 12 are from Europe, 8 are from South America, Central America (including Mexico) and the Caribbean, 5 are from Canada and the US and 1 is from Oceania (an area that include Australia, New Zealand and the islands of the south, west and central Pacific). I have taught lots of children who will love the numbers involved in this very engaging presentation of a global village. 

'At the Beach: Postcards from Crabby Spit' is an Australian picture book by Roland Harvey that was introduced to me at a local Literacy conference. I immediately fell in love with the illustrations and the way the story is told through a series of postcards. You know you can get those books that cause children to pore over the illustrations to find every single detail? Well this is one of those books. Children will love the humour and the challenge to find a multitude of objects hidden within the pages. 

Finally comes a story by Mitsumasa and Masaichiro Anno from Japan called 'Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar' which is a great book for those mathematically minded among you. 

The simple text and illustrations tell the story of factorials and is great for talking about multiplication. I am a big believer in using books across the curriculum and I think this is a great addition to any Maths lesson.

 

Thank you for reading about this small selection of books from across the world. It would be wonderful if we could build up a list of recommended books so please do share in the comments!

Kelly the Daylight Explorer