The Reading Room

Don't Call Me Choochie Pooh!

by Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley

Read Aloud
This book was made to be shared. The pictures are beautifully expressive - just look at those eyebrows. The contrast between the dog and the human are loads of fun - but you have to do the voices. We went with a really deep, gruff voice (think Danny Dyer with a sore throat) for the main character, switching to a high-pitched, over-pronounced vocal for the human. Written in the first person, it gives direct insight into how puppies really feel about being pampered pooches.
Today we've read it out loud with children aged 4-9 and got laughs all round.

Talking points

Image result for the boy at the back of the class

One of the children asked if the main character is a boy or a girl. This sparked an interesting discussion:
"It's a girl! Look at the big pink bow!"
"Boys can wear bows; that doesn't mean anything."
"It didn't choose the bow anyway, the lady did. And he doesn't like it, so he might be a boy."
Really, the gender isn't stated (in a similar way to The Boy at the Back of the Class), which led us to decide it is irrelevant. The dog's character is what matters.

Another thing Year 2 picked up on was the theme of acceptance. Connecting to Perfectly Norman (which we read yesterday) they talked about how often, people worry that they will not be accepted or included, before anything even goes wrong!
They decided that
1. When they feel like that they will try to step up and be positive and brave.
2. They will look out for others who might be worried and encourage them with friendly words and smiles.

It's always extra brilliant when we can bring a strong message out of a book which makes us laugh so much.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Well, it depends where you look. We haven't got our decorations up yet, but there are small signs of Christmas beginning to creep in. The songs on the school piano sing of snowflakes, Santa and Bethlehem silently sleeping, and there is a box in the office showing tea-towels and a cuddly sheep. For those of us who get Christmas ready for others, the season is here.

In The Reading Room we're preparing a display of Christmassy books, so we asked our friends on twitter for help.

What are the books we absolutely have to have in our Reading Room at Christmas time?

We thought we'd get a few responses that we could buy to add to our collection.
The response we got was much bigger (and much more expensive) than we expected.

So, in no particular order, here's the list.

Book	Author	Illustrator
The Christmas Promise	Alison Mitchell	Catalina Echeverri
A Boy Called Christmas	Matt Haig	Chris Mould
The Girl Who Saved Christmas
The Truth Pixie
The Storm Whale in Winter	Benji Davies
Santa is coming to London/Cornwall/Nottingham…	Steve Smallman
Jesus’ Christmas Party	Nicholas Allan
Father Christmas Needs a Wee	Nicholas Allan
Refuge	Anne Booth	Sam Usher
The Christmas Fairy		Rosalind Beardshaw
Jenny, the Shy Angel		Ruth Hearson
How the Grinch Stole Christmas	Dr Seuss
A Christmas Carol	Charles Dickens
The Snowman	Raymond Briggs
Father Christmas	Raymond Briggs
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	C. S. Lewis
Nightmare Before Christmas	Tim Burton
Letters From Father Christmas	J. R. R. Tolkien
The Vanderbeekers of 141^st Street	Karina Glaser
The Nutcracker	Mary Packard
The Story of Christmas book and advent calendar set	Mary Packard	Carolyn Croll
Katie’s London Christmas	James Mayhew
Ella Ballerina and the Nutcracker	James Mayhew
Emily Brown and Father Christmas	Cressida Cowell	Neal Layton
Willows in Winter	William Harwood	Patrick Benson
Room for a Little One	Martin Waddell	Jason Cockcroft
The Christmasaurus	Tom Fletcher	Shane Davies
The Dinosaur that Pooped Christmas	Tom Fletcher	Dougie Poynter
The Christmas Bear lift the flap book	Ian Whybrow	Axel Scheffler
Stick Man	Julia Donaldson	Axel Scheffler
One Magical Christmas	Alice Wood
How Santa Really Works	Alan Snow
Happy Christmas Boris	Sam Lloyd
The Little Reindeer	Nicola Killen
The Empty Stocking	Richard Curtis	Rebecca Cobb
The Christmas Mystery	Jostein Gaarder
An Angel Just Like Me	Mary Hoffman Cornelius Van Wright	Ying-Hwa Hu Hing Hwa Hu
Little Drummer Boy	Ezra Jack Keats
Harvey Slumfenburger’s Christmas Present	John Burningham
Too Many Tamales	Gary Soto	Ed Martinez
Angel Mae	Shirley Hughes
Alfie’s Christmas	Shirley Hughes
Jolly Christmas Postman	Allan and Janet Ahlberg
My Penguin Osbert	Elizabeth Cody Kimmel	H. B. Lewis
There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Christmas Cake	Hazel Edwards	Deborah Niland
Christmas Wombat	Jackie French	Bruce Whatley
The Night I Met Father Christmas	Ben Miller	Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini
Nikolai of the North	Lucy Daniel Raby
How Winston Delivered Christmas	Alex T Smith
I Killed Father Christmas	Anthony McGowan	Chris Riddell
The Dog That Saved Christmas	Nicola Davies	Mike Byrne
Santa Claus vs The Easter Bunny	Fred Blunt
One Christmas Wish	Katherine Rundell	Emily Sutton
Mog’s Christmas	Judith Kerr
The Night Before Christmas	Clement C Moore
The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
Let It Snow	Anne Fine	Kerry Hindman
Merry Christmas Blue Kangaroo	Emma Chichester Clark
Melrose and Croc Together at Christmas	Emma Chichester Clark
Santa’s Beard	Matilda Tristam Tom Duxbury	Nick Sharratt
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever	Barbara Robinson
Pick a Pine Tree	Patricia Toht	Jarvis
The Polar Express	Chris Van Allsburg
When Santa Fell to Earth	Cornelia Funke	Paul Howard

Disclaimer: We have not read all 67 of these books.
Some of them we've read over and over; others have moved to the top of our TBR pile.

We were surprised at what was missing, so we've picked a few of our own Christmas favourites to add to the list.

What would you add?