Gruffalo's Mommy is Crowned Children's Laureate

Julia Donaldson, who is known by millions of children the world over as

the creator of the Gruffalo has been appointed the new children's laureate.

Donaldson takes on a role that was dreamed up by Ted Hughes, then poet laureate, and his friend Michael Morpurgo, to mark a lifetime's contribution to children's literature and highlight the importance of children's books.

"The laureateship is an honour but it's not the kind of honour you can just bask in, so I'm planning to have quite an active two years," she said. "I'm hoping to bring some drama and music to the job. I always act out my own stories with lots of audience participation so I'm planning to do lots more of that. I hope to encourage and inspire children to act stories out, though it's too early to say whether there will be one major theatrical event." 

Donaldson, who is so clever and funny, has written 120 books for various age groups. But her unwavering superstar is the outwardly ferocious Gruffalo, written in deceptively simple verse with illustrations by Axel Scheffler.

With only 700 words across 32 pages, the tale of an anxious mouse struggling to keep his courage up and a cowardly monster was instantly recognised as a classic. It has won several awards and has now sold more than 10.5 million copies and been translated into languages including Polish, Hebrew, Lithuanian and Russian.

The sequel, The Gruffalo's Child, won a best children's book award in 2005 and the original was voted the best bedtime story of all time by BBC radio listeners in 2009. The Gruffalo has recently sparked a multimillion pound merchandising operation on a scale that gives Paddington Bear a run for his money.

You can find a range of Julia Donaldson’s books at www.imagikids.co.za

Happy Reading :)

Introduce Your Children to a Colourful Land of Living Letters

When my little girl came home with a colouring-in of an ‘A’ dressed like an Apple and started jabbering about Annie Apple, Bouncing Ben and Clever Cat, I was intrigued. This looked like a well thought out way of helping children to remember the alphabet both audibly and visually. So I did what any modern Mom might do – I looked up Annie Apple and I uncovered the wonderful world of Letterland. 

Letterland, originally developed by Lyn Wendon, is a  phonics based approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling for to 3-8 year olds. Children are taught shapes and sounds of letters by giving them imaginary names and shapes and presenting them as living things in the fictional land of Letterland. Letterland characters transform plain black letter shapes into pictogram characters. By translating the full range of dry phonic facts into engaging stories, children are motivated to listen, to think and to learn. These stories explain letter shapes and sounds, allowing children to progress quickly to word building, reading and writing. 

Children find Letterland to be exciting and colourful and it is used extensively at pre-primary level in South Africa. It has also been used to help teach young children English in foreign language countries like Russia. The pictogram characters of Letterland provide teachers with opportunities to use English in an engaging, conversational manner when teaching children and this leads to an expansion in vocabulary and grammar.

Mom’s can order a range of Letterland books at www.imagikids.co.za and use them creatively at home to reinforce what their children are learning in the classroom as they take their first steps towards learning to read.

Happy Learning to Read :)