When building up a book collection for children it is important to include a broad range of high-quality fiction and information texts. The fictional picture books should include classic stories, traditional tales and rhythmic and rhyming texts.
These will captivate young children and help them to develop positive attitudes to reading and see books as exciting, interesting and fun. But practitioners also need to consider the use of quality texts to explore important issues in young children's lives.
Such issues include common events such as the birth of a new baby, sibling rivalry, moving to a new home or school or visiting relatives at home or overseas.
Books provide opportunities to discuss issues that are very important to young children dealing with a range of emotions, including fear, loss, jealousy, loneliness or anger.
Books that deal with these issues should be high-quality texts with good illustrations, which children can share with a trusted adult and revisit again and again if they want to.
If a child and family are dealing with a difficult situation, such as bereavement or family breakdown, books can offer a good starting point to explore the situation together.
Of course, practitioners should always be sensitive and work jointly with the family to support the child. Sharing a book about the death of a well- loved character from a book, such as Mog the cat, will offer children the vocabulary to investigate their own fears and anxieties about what is going on around them. Books with such emotive themes will often be used on a one-to-one basis with children to meet their own individual needs and may be stored away from the general book area. Practitioners should always be familiar with the whole content of the books when using them to explore such sensitive issues.
Other books that deal with more general themes such as fear, loss and feeling alone, should be an integral part of the general book collection, which is available for children to use autonomously and independently. The books should also be part of planned book-sharing sessions for small or larger groups of children. Children can laugh about a child's fear of 'the bear under the stairs' while considering their own anxieties in a safe, secure environment with known adults and children.
Books that deal with important themes are a key resource in supporting children's personal, social and emotional development. Those that explore similarities and differences between individuals or families and celebrate diversity will offer opportunities for children to 'understand that people have different needs, views, cultures and beliefs and that these need to be treated with respect' (Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage).
A book collection needs to include texts that reflect the multicultural and diverse society in which we live. Many high street booksellers stock only a limited range of such texts, so it is important to find alternative suppliers. Practitioners can use an internet search engine to locate local multicultural book stockists and look before they buy. Alternatively, staff should consider buying books from a highly regarded book supplier such as Letterbox Library (www.letterboxlibrary.com).NW
Judith Stevens is early years adviser at Lewisham Education
Recommended core titles
Look out for other books by these authors
Dogger by Shirley Hughes (Red Fox 5.99)
Goodbye Mog by Judith Kerr (Picture Lions 4.99)
Kipper's Monster by Mick Inkpen (Hodder 4.99)
Shhh! by Sally Grindley (Hodder 5.99)
When the Teddy Bears Came by Martin Waddell (Walker 4.99)
Where's Chimpy? by Berneice Rabe (Alber Whitman 3.62)
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell (Walker 4.99)
Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside (Hodder 4.99)
Something Else by Kathryn Cave (Puffin 4.99)
Dossie is Lonely by Ros Bayley and Lynn Broadbent (Lawrence Educational Pounds 6.00)
Other titles to consider
* Two Homes by Claire Masurel (Walker 4.99)
* I Feel Angry by Brian Moses (Hodder 5.99)
* Mum's Late by Elizabeth Hawkins (Tamarind 4.99)
* My Little Brother by Debi Gliori (Walker 4.99)
* Dear Bear by Joanna Harrison (Picture Lions 4.99)
* Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray (Red Fox 4.99)
* Badger's Parting Gifts by Susan Varley (4.99)
* I'll Always Love You by Hans Wilhelm (Sagebrush 7.99)
* Mama Zooms by Jane Cowen Fletcher (Scholastic 5.99)
