Recommendations of Reading Materials by Participating Teacher-librarians

Complete list

*Book titles are arranged in alphabetical order.

Picture book biography (Series)

Author / Editor: Adler, David A.

Place of Publication: New York

Publisher : Holiday House

        The author of the Picture book biography series is David A. Adler. Books in this series introduce mainly the American leaders in history. They provide important facts of the American leaders from birth to death. Students will be inspired by the fascinating life stories of the people in the books. There are beautiful and expressive pictures to help readers to understand the stories.

        Texts are short and to the point. Length of the books is suitable for upper primary students. They are good to be used as teaching the structure of biography.

Pooh’s first day of school

Author / Editor: Zoefeld, Kathlewen W.

Series: Disney Winnie the Pooh

Place of Publication: 香港

Publisher : 星島

Year of Publication: 2004

Remarks: A bilingual book

        This colourful storybook belongs to the Disney Winnie the Pooh series.  It is a soothing book written by the award-winning author, Kathleen Weidneer Zoehfeld, for lower primary students. 

        The story started with the curiosity of Pooh, Piglet, Roo, Eeyore and Tigger during their schooling.  Christopher told them the usual school routine, which included singing, playing and eating with classmates.  Children had lots of joyful moments in their school.  With Christopher’s explanation, the anxious feeling of everyone was eased at the end.

        The cozy and luxuriant pictures of the books can surely attract the attention of P.1 and P.2 students.

露絲在海灘 =Rosie at the beach

Author / Editor:  Krings, Antoon

Place of Publication: Hong Kong

Publisher : Tomate & Abricot

Year of Publication: 2001

Remarks: A bilingual book

        The acclaimed French writer and illustrator, Antoon Krings, is entitled as "God of small animals".  With the dazzling watercolour illustrations and interesting plot, he fabricates a wonderful story about friendship for P.3 students.

        In the story, Rosie, the little pig went swimming with her friend, Salamie.  When they were enjoying the Sun and the beach, Rosie found that her sandwiches were stolen.  They gathered their wit to catch the Rabbit thief.  These two funny little creatures tell children that life is full of fun and hope.

        The simple text, appealing pictures, strong characters and logical plot development of the story make this book desirable for reading aloud to young children and invite them to make predictions while they read.

Share bear  

Author/Editor : Graham, Amanda

Series : Wings

Place of Publication : Australia

Publisher : ERA Publications Pty Ltd

Year of Publication : 2002

        "Share Bear" is from the "Wings" series and shares common characters Mr. Bear and Mr. Wolf with some other stories in the series such as "The Last Donut".

        In the story, Mr. Bear had some honey, pizza, pie, melon and ice-cream. Mr. Wolf was so greedy that he asked Mr. Bear to share the food with him. Mr. Bear was so kind that he allowed Mr. Wolf to share half of the food. After eating, Mr. Bear told Mr. Wolf that he also had some dirty dishes and asked Mr. Wolf to wash half of them. At last, Mr. Wolf shared Mr. Bear’s work.

        The text of the book is simple and the story’s ending is funny. It is suitable for P.1 to P.2 students.

Watch me throw the ball! 

Author / Editor: Willems, Mo

Series: An Elephant & Piggie book

Place of Publication: New York

Publisher : Hyperion Books for children

Year of Publication: 2009

Remarks: Chinese version is available

        This interesting storybook belongs to the Theodor Suess Geisel Medal awarded series "Elephant and Piggie" of the three-time Caldecott Honor winner, Mo Willems.

        This book is about different attitudes of Elephant and Piggie towards playing ball.  Piggie simply wanted to throw the ball for fun while Gerald intended to teach Piggie that throwing a ball could be a serious business. 

        The hilarious story is made up of the contradictory characteristics of the two friendly protagonists, for instance, the optimistic Peggie versus the pessimistic Elephant; the simplicity of Peggie versus the complexity of Elephant.  Teachers can adopt the story for arranging a drama class for students to act out after reading. 

        The large fonts, eye-catching word bubbles, plain backgrounds, impressive pictures, and humorous elements all make this book a wonderful collection for beginning readers of P.1 and P.2.

Yeh-shen: A Cinderella story from China

Author/Editor : Louie, Ai-Ling

Place of Publication : Guernsey

Publisher : Puffin Books

Year of Publication : 2010

        Apart from Disney stories, I would recommend this book to the girls who are interested in princess fairy tales. As the story is similar to Cinderella, it is easy for children to understand and could be used in lessons on fairy tales.

        "Yeh-Shen" tells the story of a young girl who was orphaned at a young age and was raised by her stepmother. Yeh-Shen grew into a very beautiful and kind woman, despite the workload given to Yeh-Shen because of her stepmother’s jealousy. Her only friend was a golden fish that talked, but her stepmother caught the fish and ate it for dinner. An old sage told Yeh-shen that if she prayed to the fish bones, the bones would make her dreams come true. One day, she was not allowed to attend a festival and was forced to stay home. Yeh-Shen prayed to her fish bones, and her dress was magically transformed into a beautiful gown. Yeh-Shen’s beauty was greatly admired at the festival, but Yeh-Shen lost her golden slipper when she left the festival. The slipper was presented to the king who was enchanted by its delicate beauty. He said that he would marry the person to whom the shoe belonged. In the end, Yeh-Shen and the king lived happily ever after.

        This story lends itself well with reading as it is similar to Cinderella, a fairy tale which the children are familiar with.