What We’ll Build: plans for Our Together Future: The breathtaking new companion to international bestseller Here We Are: The breathtaking companion to international bestseller Here We Are

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The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) has produced a set of teaching notes to provide schools with sessions that focus on the importance of illustration in building a narrative and supporting children’s response. They build on their work supporting teachers to use picture books to enhance critical thinking and develop creative approaches in art and writing. The teaching notes show how picture books can be used in schools to enhance children’s reading comprehension and composition of their own creative writing. There are strong links with geography here ... and it hits Ofsted's 'reading across the curriculum' focus too (a key element of their Education Inspection Framework [EIF]). Problematic classics: All that mostly Medieval, pre-20th century stuff where children are eaten by witches or ogres if they disobey their parents, or otherwise mutilated (fingers cut off, turned into mince pies, etc), or terribly sexist stuff where women are almost always damsels in distress/princesses in towers waiting on some plastic Ken doll. Colorful, fun, something we choose to basically never expose to our kid except via movie time (i.e. old Disney). Task 1:Think again about what you think these two characters might build. See if you can imagine the things they are building and think about them building those things. Where are they? What do they look like? What are they building? What are they using to build? Children will love his playbook for building a future of love and imagination, and they will delight in the special relationship the father and daughter share." -- Booklist

Agenda books: Anti-Racist Baby, Feminist Baby. I gave my kids Buddhist baby books and I already feel embarrassed/silly about it. Like I'm taking advantage of their age and impressionability to start a brainwashing campaign. Anyway, these are the books that have Important Values that the parents are anxious to impart on their kids, but that are probably just waaay over the kids' heads and I almost feel bad dragging them into the shitty parts of society (prejudice, etc), especially when it's clumsily written. Don't get me started on the anti-racist baby book: "point to policies, not people" - right. I'll tell that to my toddler. :Children will love his playbook for building a future of love and imagination, and they will delight in the special relationship the father and daughter share.”— Booklist

The father-daughter duo build their home, the only material thing they construct, and then they invest their time in the importance of building love, hope, resilience, forgiveness and warmth. The tools are laid out at the very beginning, a selection of hammers, saws, drills (and a tiny pink pig!) from a shiny, red toolbox but we come to realise that the real 'tools' we need as parents when building our futures together are trust, comfort, compassion, unconditional love. The toolbox appears throughout the book as if to remind us that we carry these tools around with us on our parenting journey.

What We'll Build by Oliver Jeffers

His latest book is dedicated not just to his daughter but also his late mother, Marie, who died when he was 20 after living with multiple sclerosis for almost his entire life. He believes the experience gave him a “superpower” of sorts. “It underlined what was important. I liken it to being given a stepladder and being able to look over the parapet of everydayness. You can see past a lot of the pettiness, a lot of the bullshit, a lot of the minutiae. You can see to the heart of what’s worth living for, what’s worth fighting for.”

|I read Here We Are years, a letter from a parent to his child. Another of Jeffers’ heartfelt picture books (he does regularly manage to elicit tears) and stir emotions. And so elegantly as well. Without effort it seems. This touching and inspirational picture book features a young girl and her father, who make plans to build a glorious future together. As they gather up their tools, they discuss all the incredible things they will make. Their construction projects range from tangible objects, including a house, a tall tower and an unsinkable boat, to more abstract concepts, such as building friendships, setting aside love for difficult times and aiming high by creating a road to the moon. At the end of a tiring day, their heads buzzing with an abundance of amazing ideas, they build a fire, curl up together and fall fast asleep, making this a perfect bedtime read.With offspring prone to crashing his Zoom meetings and his studio over on the other side of the Atlantic, he has found creating in Belfast a challenge. The couple had set up a quiet area in their bedroom for work calls: “But that was like a red rag to a bull to the kids, knowing that one of us was trying to avoid them. They would just come bombarding in.”