So this has been pretty much my working life for the past year …
Not that I’ve been balancing on crocodiles, but I have been working on getting the balance right for my new book, Ted Goes Wild (illustrated by Tom Jellett).
There are so many versions of the The Three Little pigs out there and we found a few and created a little freebie to share with you all.
First we'll read an original version of The Three Little Pigs.
The freebie is a worksheet comparing the houses in an original version of The 3 Little Pigs and a version that you choose. We'll be choosing The 3 Little Daisies because the houses are completely different.
Click the worksheet below to download your copy => http://bit.ly/nFCK8p
Let's Go, Baby-o!
Janet McLean
EAN:978-1742375649
Format: Hardback
Published by: Allen and Unwin
Published: 1 March 2012
Let's Go, Baby-o! You and me! To the up, to the down and the turn around, to the wibble and the wobble, and the flip, flop hop. Then twist, twirl, whirrrl...When sleep-time is over, a little boy and his friend play action games, but in between they stop to look out the window. What do they see? Grandparents are digging in the garden, children are building a cubby house, the cat has her eye on the baby birds and the dogs have their eyes on the cat! Let's Go, Baby-o! is a fun-filled story for parents, grandparents, teachers and childcare educators to share with babies and young children. This book shows that learning language and playing games go together and will encourage the conversations between children and adults that are so important for children's development.
not available from
Paul Jenning has added to his website. This time it's a colouring picture. Sniff the Dragon. Check it out at his fabulous downloads page. => http://bit.ly/nZC5qA
You can met Sniff in Paul Jennings' book "Rascal the Dragon"
EAN:978-0143501732
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Global
Published in: Australia
Published: April 2007
Ben wants a pet dragon, but his father says no because each one has a bad habit in this easy reader by Australian author Paul Jenning. Ben finds a stray dragon that he names Rascal and begs his father to let him keep him as a pet. When Rascal makes himself useful by lighting a fire ....
Best price in Australia
... also available from
There's a Hippopotamus on our roof eating cake
Hazel Edwards
My daddy says there's a hole in our roof. I know why there's a hole. There's a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake.' This classic story about one of the largest and most famous imaginary friends has been delighting children around the world now for 30 years.
http://bit.ly/jjjXT0 for more on the book, the trailer and fiction activities for the book
The Dream of the Thylacine
Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks
This arresting and beautiful picture book from Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks is a shimmering encounter with the Tasmanian tiger, a lament for a lost species, and a compelling evocation of the place of animals in Nature.
For more about the book plus acess Curriculum notes => http://bit.ly/mxTf4p
Doodleday
by Ross Collins
Mom has just one thing to tell Harvey on Doodleday--no drawing allowed! But surely drawing one little fly can't hurt. Not until Harvey's fly comes to life and starts to wreck the kitchen, that is! What can Harvey draw that will catch it? A spider! But the spider proves to be even more trouble. Only one thing is capable of stopping Harvey's rampaging doddles...Mom!
Activities for Doodleday at http://bit.ly/kYiCrd
I have just put together a page for Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer - with this synopsis, a trailer and a package of links to more than 20 fiction activities for the book. You can visit it here => http://bit.ly/luVDdz 
Twelve-year-old villain, Artemis Fowl, is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. His bold and daring plan is to hold a leprechaun to ransom. But he's taking on more than he bargained for when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Unit). For a start, leprechaun technology is more advanced than our own. Add to that the fact that Holly is a true heroine and that her senior officer Commander Root will stop at nothing to get her back and you've got the mother of all sieges brewing!
On the heels of earning an Oscar nom for co-writing "The Kids Are All Right," Lisa Cholodenko is in negotiations to direct a live-action adaptation of the children's picturebook "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" for 20th Century Fox. => http://bit.ly/lI7QCN
The work of Shaun Tan, the Australian children’s book illustrator, recalls Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton, but with a mature sad-humored control. It’s a tone that pervades The Lost Thing, an animated adaptation of Tan’s 1999 book of the same name, which won an Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards. It’s the tale of a young man in a post-industrial landscape who discovers a neglected many-tentacled playful cyborg on a beach. This month, that and two of his other older children’s books, The Red Tree (2001), a meditation on loneliness, and the John Marsden-authored The Rabbits (1998), an allegory for the plight of the Aborigine, are enjoying a wide release in America in a one-book compendium Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan. These are the kinds of children’s books over which you obsess over the details of the pages’ margins.
Tan, who lives in Melbourne, answered some questions by email. => http://bit.ly/mL2dXc
