Children′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.

Some kids refuse to read, others won’t stop – not even at the dinner table! Either way, many parents question the best way to support their child’s literacy journey. When can you start reading to your child? How do you find that special book to inspire a reluctant reader? What can you do to keep your tween reading into their adolescent years? Award-winning teacher librarian Megan Daley, the passionate voice behind the Children’s Books Daily blog, has the answers to all these questions and more. She unpacks her twenty years of experience into this personable and accessible guide, enhanced with up-to-date research and firsthand accounts from well-known Australian children’s authors. It also contains practical tips, such as suggested reading lists and instructions on how to run book-themed activities.Raising Readers is a must-have resource for parents and educators to help the children in their lives fall in love with books.

Storying Plants in Australian Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Roots and Winged Seeds explores cultural and historical aspects of the representation of plants in Australian children’s and young adult literature, encompassing colonial, postcolonial, and Indigenous perspectives. While plants tend to be backgrounded as of less narrative interest than animals and humans, this book, in conversation with the field of critical plant studies, approaches them as living beings worthy of attention. Australia is home to over 20,000 species of native plants – from pungent Eucalypts to twisting mangroves, from tiny orchids to spiky, silvery spinifex. Indigenous Australians have lived with, relied upon, and cultivated these plants for many thousands of years. When European explorers and colonists first invaded Australia, unfamiliar species of plants captured their imagination. Vulnerable to bushfires, climate change, and introduced species, plants continue to occupy fraught but vital places in Australian ecologies, texts, and cultures. Discussing writers from Ambelin Kwaymullina and Aunty Joy Murphy to May Gibbs and Ethel Turner, and embracing transnational perspectives from Ukraine, Poland, and Aotearoa New Zealand, Storying Plants addresses the stories told about plants but also the stories that plants themselves tell, engaging with the wide-ranging significance of plants in Australian children’s and Young Adult literature.

Machine Takeover: The Growing Threat to Human Freedom in a Computer-Controlled Society discusses the implications of technological advancement. The title identifies the changes in society that no one is aware of, along with what this changes entails. The text first covers the information science, particularly the aspect of an automated system for information processing. Next, the selection deals with social implications of information science, such as information pollution. The text also tackles the concerns in the utilization of technology in order to manipulate the lives of people without their knowledge. In Part III, the title covers the science of cybernetics and artificial intelligence. The last part tackles the consequences of modern science. The book will be of great interest to readers who are concerned with the direction of contemporary science.

Conceived, designed and produced by Quarto Publishing plc, London.