The Library Diaries : Illuminated Manuscripts to Librarian: PD Blog Post #1 Book review of CBCA Honours Winning Picture Story Book of the Year 2020, "Three" written and illustrated by Stephen Michael King.

Activity undertaken.

For my first blog post, I chose to write a book review of Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Honours Award winning picture story book “Three”, written and illustrated by Stephen Michael King (2020). As I did not have access to a physical copy of the book I had chosen, I used my Story Box Library membership to see the book (2024). This book was chosen as it will allow me to relate it to the importance of young people’s book awards.

My experiences during this activity:

During the course of this activity, I learnt that I need to read a book multiple times to grasp more of the themes the author is trying to convey. Picture story books contain multiple layers of meaning that isn’t always obvious in a single read and it’s important to understand these layers in order to be able to pass on this knowledge during library programs. Added to, by the illustrations, it can mean that a short picture story book can be illuminating on multiple themes.

By knowing Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theory, of using scaffolding to help assist children’s development (Sprouts, 2020) and understanding what messages the books are conveying; I can design programs to provide scaffolding for young children to enhance their development. Including, basic educational needs of literacy and reading, but in reference to “Three” it can help provide children with their social development by providing programs to teach self-acceptance, gratitude and diversity.

I find that I do a lot of things instinctively, without theory to support the programs and resources I choose for the library. By completing this activity and relating it to a developmental theory, I am beginning to fill those knowledge gaps to better help me understand why I make certain decisions and perhaps make better choices, it will also allow me to extend my planning beyond what I might have in the past to provide richer experiences for patrons.

Discuss the chosen topic.

By providing children opportunities to see their communities represented in books it allows them to know they have a place in the world. Therefore, I chose to focus on an Australian book that won an Australian book award, as I feel that it is important to highlight Australian literature to young people. The CBCA has the same objectives, with the inception of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards in 1945, in order to promote and support Australian authors and illustrators and to promote quality literature for Australian young people (Children's Book Council of Australia [CBCA], 2024). Originally, when the awards were introduced, the winners were awarded a camellia for a woman and a handshake for a man (Children's Book Council of Australia [CBCA], n.d.); the fame gained by being nominated or winning an award, promoted Australian authors, but this would not have always been enough to support them financially to focus on producing new works. Now winners receive a monetary prize which gives them financial support in order to devote more time to their art. Having book awards assists librarians in choosing new books for their collections, there are so many new publications every year it is helpful to have resources to assist in creating collections that not only engage readers but also help to support their social development.

References

Children's Book Council of Australia [CBCA]. (2024). About the CBCA Book of the Year Awards. Retrieved 16 March 2024 from https://www.cbca.org.au/about-the-awards

Children's Book Council of Australia [CBCA]. (n.d.). History of the CBCA awards foundation. Retrieved 16 March 2024 from https://cbca.org.au/awards-foundation

King, S. M. (2020). Three. Scholastic Australia.

King, S. M. (2024). Three. Story Box Library.

Sprouts. (2020, February 28). Vygotsky's cognitive development through social relationships [video], YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I2hrSRbmHE

Book review: "Three" by Stephen Michael King

A book cover with a dog standing on the street

"Three" book cover (Stephen Michael King, 2020a)

Three is the story of a little lost dog with three legs, an engaging and beautifully illustrated picture story book for young children, who are starting to explore how people around them are both alike and different to themselves. Although this story starts out sad with the knowledge that Three doesn’t have a family to care for him, his three good legs take him all the places he wants to go. Three goes on a journey that shows the reader that gratitude for what we do have and can do goes a long way to help us to be able to accept ourselves as we are. Along the way Three meets a diversity of characters, all who have a different number of legs to Three, all of whom have different abilities and situations in life different to Three. Eventually Three meets the person who loves and accepts him exactly as he is and finds the family he was meant to be with. “Three” was nominated for the CBCA 2020 Picture Book of the Year Award and achieved a final round Honours award (2020).