Literature+for+children

=//LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN//=

"Like me, like you" series
The "like me, like you" series (By Jillian Powel) addresses various disabilities, describing a day in the life of children with a disability, and showing how they, their family and their friends manage everyday situations. The writing is accompanied by photographs rather than drawings, showing the 'main character' in everyday scenarios (at school, during ballet class, at home, in he supermarket) making it very relevant and easy to connect to our own everyday life.

Titles in this series include:

//Charlotte has impaired vision//
//﻿// //﻿// This is a great series to use with children age 4-10 (or so) to help children gain an awareness of different disabilities and learn about numerous resources available to people with additional needs. They can be used as a group time story, or as a starting point to a discussion, and would be a valuable addition to school libraries. They would also be useful to provide information to a class as preparation before a child with a specific disability joins the group. By creating this awareness from a young age, I feel that we help children to be open minded, accepting and accommodating towards differences.

Reference: Powel, J. (2006). //Like me, like you// series. Chiltern street, London: Evans Brothers Ltd ([|www.evansbooks.co.uk])

**//The Race,// by Christobel Mattingley and illustrated by Anne Spudvilas[[image:The_Race.JPG align="right"]]**
//The Race// (1994) is a picture book depicting about a boy named Greg who always starts late when racing against his classmates. Greg's teacher suspects that Greg is unable to hear fully and changes how he starts the race so that Greg is able to compete. **﻿** //The Race// could be used to introduce discussion about disabilities with students in primary school. Discussing Greg's emotions will help develop emapthetic thinking skills and help develop students' awareness of the importance of social and academic inclusion. Even if there are not currently students in the class that require significant additional support, by discussing the emotive issues students will be better prepared when they are around people with disabilities. The story can also be used to look at problem solving with regards to disabilities; students could investigate ways that students with different disabilities could be included in their class. The story can also be used to increase student awareness of and sense of equality about the additional assistance students with disabilities may require.

Reference: Mattingley, C. (Writer) and Spudvilas, A. (Illustrator) (1994) //The Race,// Sydney, Ashton Scholastic

//A Nice Walk in the Jungle,// written and illustrated by Nan Bodsworth
//A Nice Walk in the Jungle// (1989) a teacher leads her class on a walk through the jungle, unaware that her students are being taken by a boa constrictor. The class depicted is diverse; it includes a range of different backgrounds and one child in a wheelchair. The story is humorous and the pictures bright and interesting.

In the classroom this story could be used as part of unit of work on jungles or ecosystems. Students could use the clues in the story to develop theories of where the students go to school. As part of the literacy curriculum students could dramatise the story by taking on roles from the story or write a re-telling. In art students could paint themselves in to the story.

Because of the visible diversity of the class in the story it could be used to reinforce that diversity is normal﻿. The story could pave the way for discussion about what makes students different and similar. Their is also value in students simpling being exposed to the depiction of people like them in stories to reinforce that they are par tof society. Reference: Bodsworth, N. (1989) //A Nice Walk in the Jungle,// Melbourne, Viking Kestrel