Thursday, September 2, 2010

3rd September Naomi Lewis (1911 - 2009) Aliki (1929)





Naomi Lewis
was a British poet and reteller of stories for children, especially those of Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen. Susan Curtis wrote in Naomi's obituary in The Guardian on 14th July, 2009, "Lewis was a great admirer of Andersen and used her own affinity with the world of magic and fairy tale to translate his genius. It was not just her retelling of the stories that infused them with new energy, but the wonderful introductions that accompanied them; urging and explaining to young minds the individuality of each tale and the personality that had formed them."

Aliki Brandenberg, known simply as Aliki on her books, is an American-born author/ illustrator of Greek heritage, is married to Swiss-born author, Franz Brandenberg with whom she has collaborated on books and now lives in England. She writes both fiction and non-fiction tiles and illustrates in many styles. Sometimes she adopts a comic-book style complete with speech bubbles (see Feelings and Manners) and other times she adapts her art style to suit the content of the book (see Medieval Feast and William Shakespeare and the Globe). Aliki has said "I write fiction out of a need to express myself. I write non-fiction - out of curiosity and fascination. And I draw in order to breathe."

Year 2 begin a unit of enquiry about Greek mythology with Aliki's book The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus which has just the right amount of information to excite children to want more and then they can pursue what interested them most. Year 1 use her Fossils Tell of Long Ago and Digging Up the Past while learning about what is under the ground. Her books cover such a diverse range of topics.

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