The down-under 12 days of Christmas by Michael Salmon
Ford St. 2012. ISBN 978 1 921665 60 8.
(Ages 5+) Christmas, Picture book. A brightly coloured and
infectiously rhyming remake of the old favourite, The 12 days of
Christmas, will encourage all comers to join in the fun of reading
this book, whether read as a story, a poem, or joining in with the
music which is easily accessible on Google (well, with a bit of
searching around. There is an Australian version on Youtube which is
hard to listen to, but alldownunder.com
has the music and several Australian versions listed which can be
listened to)
Each page has a range of different Australian animals depicted, with
the refrain gathering a kookaburra, snakes, galahs, lyrebirds,
kangaroos, sharks, emus, dingoes, crocs, wombats, lizards, and
possums as the presents for the narrator. Students will love the
build up of animals as shown on the right hand side of the page as
the cumulative number of animals is revealed, s well as closely
perusing each page to see what else s there. There are a number of
versions of this song around, so it would be a good opportunity to
look at the original and compare it with the other versions. Many
students will love to find out more about some o the animals they
know little about, ponder about the setting for each group of
animals, and possibly suggest others that could have been included.
Discussion about rhyme and metre will also flow from using this song
and book in the classroom.
Fran Knight