Escape To Everywhere – Books To Inspire This CBCA Book Week

It’s August, which in Australia means it is nearly Book Week.

From 19-26 August, children around Australia are celebrating books. There are book parades, special writing classes, authors visiting schools, book displays…

This year, the theme is Escape to Everywhere, and we all have to thank Freya Blackwood for producing the most divine art work for the event.

Escape to Everywhere could mean so many things to so many people. Opening up a new book is the chance to disappear into a new world, get lost in another person’s world, explore new terrain. Even, or especially, non-fiction, shows us new worlds we didn’t know about.

What does the theme mean to you?

I was thinking that this year’s Book Week theme ties in nicely with themes in Archie and the Bear.

Here is a list of books to inspire your escape to everywhere this Book Week.

Where The Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak

Just about all of us have this classic on our shelves. Where The Wild Things Are is Max, and just about every person on the planet’s escape to another world, where strange creatures rumpus, and where we get to be in control. Fortunately, soup is waiting for us on return.

The Magic Beach, Alison Lester

Almost any Alison Lester book will fit the bill. But The Magic Beach is the classic escape from the everyday, into a magic and everywhere world. Our children are so fantastically good at taking themselves into fantasy lands. And fresh air and sea salt does wonders for the imagination.

There’s A Hippopotamus On Our Roof, Eating Cake, Hazel Edwards

If we are going to imagine another world, we could quite easily be inspired by a world where hippopotami sit on roofs, eating cake… And other absurd things like that.

A River, Marc Martin

And now for something a little more contemporary… We love this poetic and whimsical journey of a boat down a river. Marc has created a real yet magic world, held together by a river. Escape on water.

A Year Full Of Stories: 52 Folk Tales and Legends From All Around The World, Angela McAllister and Christopher Corr

We recently bought this book, and my girls and I cannot stop reading it. We have read each of the 52 stories multiple times, and they never get dull. Escape back in time, into other lands, even to the realms of the gods over and over again with this magical book.

Archie and the Bear, Zanni Louise and David Mackintosh

Well, I just have to mention Archie here, don’t I? Archie escapes his everyday world, where no-one believes or understands him, and sets off into the forest. It is there that Archie meets someone who gets exactly what is going on…

Have a fun Book Week!

What books do you recommend escaping into?