Little Library #10: Another Year Around The Sun

Join Linda Harrison and award-winning author Katrina Germein as they dive into her latest picture book, Another Year Around the Sun. This lyrical story follows a family through a magical year of outdoor play—from summer waves to autumn leaves. Katrina shares the heartwarming personal memories that inspired the book and explains how its vibrant, paper-collage illustrations help preschoolers connect with the rhythm of the seasons and the beauty of the natural world.

This episode also shares practical pedagogical insights, linking the story to EYLF V2.0 themes of 'Becoming' and the concept of time. Educators will find three story-inspred, play-based learning ideas:
1. Setting up birthday party pretend play.
2. Creating floral headband halos and mandalas.
3. Exploring rock pool small worlds.

Little Library is your essential guide for using high-quality, contemporary children's literature to spark imagination and foster early literacy skills in any early childhood setting.

Find out more:
www.katrinagermein.com
https://www.instagram.com/katrinagermein/?hl=en

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Welcome to Learn Play Thrive the podcast, the ultimate early learning podcast for educators and leaders in the sector. Let's learn, play, and thrive together.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

The Learn Play Thrive podcast was recorded on the land with the Dark and Jung people. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians, past, present, and emerging. Hands up, hands down, we're on Dark and Jung land.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

So a warm welcome to you for today's episode of Learn Play Thrive's Little Library. It's Linda Harrison here, early education content producer at Learn Play Thrive, where we're passionate about the power of picture books to ignite young imaginations and foster a lifelong love of literacy and learning. Today we are chatting about a new picture book called Another Year Around the Sun. It's a lyrical ode to the passing of time as well as the magic of childhood, and it is an exquisite picture book that celebrates Another Year Around the Sun. It's authored by the wonderfully talented Katrina Germain, is illustrated by Alice Lindstrom and published by Affirm Press. I'm absolutely delighted to have Katrina here in the studio with us today. Hello Katrina and welcome to our little library.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Oh, hello Linda. Thank you for having me. I'm always so happy to talk with anybody who shares my love of children's picture books and children's literacy.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Fantastic. It's so great to have you on the podcast. And I think let's start off today by sharing a little bit about Katrina, who is an early childhood teacher with a master of education in early childhood, and is a best-selling children's author of books that have been published and translated internationally. Her popular picture books include Bevan Kev, Fabulous Frogs, One Little Duck, and the hilarious My Dad Thinks Is Funny series. And Katrina's work has been highlighted, sorry, Katrina's work has been highly commended in the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and she has won a CBCA Honour Award as well as multiple short listings and notables. Katrina is also a winner of the Speech Pathology Book of the Year Award. And remarkably her books have been recorded five times for Play School. And when she's not writing or daydreaming, Katrina loves bushwalking and drinking tea with friends. Wow, what a bio, Katrina!

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Oh, you make me sound good, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

So let's get into your latest picture book. Well, I know you've got another new release, but kind of the one we're focusing on today is Another Year Around the Sun. And it's such a heartwarming ode to nature and to childhood. So I guess to summarise the plot for our listeners, the story follows a family through a year of magical moments in the outdoors. So the characters are doing things like splashing in the waves and the main characters jumping in leaves and watching the world change with each season. So it really is a beautiful story about a child's year spent playing outside. So I guess what I'd love to know is what was the spark that led you to writing this picture book, Katrina?

SPEAKER_03 4:09

That's always a good question. And I think the inspiration for any story is always a bit of a jumble in your in, you know, in an author's head from sort of memories and experiences and you know, dreams or anything. But I think for me it was partly my experiences as a parent or as an early childhood educator. So those times when we're playing outdoors with children, and partly my own memories of playing outdoors as a child. And I think the beautiful thing is that those moments of joy don't really change. So the way that I loved sitting in the shallows at the beach, you know, feeling the water and the sand, and the way that I loved maybe, you know, jumping in puddles or running through some crunchy leaves or rolling down a hill, all those things, you know, the wind in the hair in your hair when you're flying a kite, those things that I remember loving, I saw my children love, and I continue to see children love. And then, you know, as adults, we really feel that joy that that we felt as children. So I think it's a mishmash of those experiences that I've had and that I've witnessed other young children have.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

That's fantastic. And I think all of those, I guess, adventures that you've had as a child and that were so memorable for you, it really makes it a meaningful story that I think will emotionally resonate with so many young children. And for me, it really highlighted how those simple everyday moments are often the most profound for a developing child, spending time in nature and outside. So I guess in the way that you've shared those universal childhood joys, like you were saying, splashing in the puddle or jumping in the leaves, you're actually giving children a bit of a mirror and they can reflect on their own lives, and it gives them a bit of an invitation to step outside and you know create their own adventures. Yeah, so it's a beautiful way to foster that connection with the natural world. So I wonder, Katrina, if you'd mind reading some of the story aloud for our listeners.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Sure, absolutely. So, as you explained at the start, it is about a family and their adventures that they have outside during the year. It's very limited text because, of course, we have beautiful illustrations to go with it. But these are a few of the pages. You hummed. You jumped. Of course, it's a rhyming text as well, which the children like to you know pick up on and predict the words.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Oh, it definitely is, and I love those that beautiful kind of poetic language, and that really leads us, I guess, into the key themes of this story. And these themes are ones that early childhood educators can explore with young children while they're actually engaged in that shared reading, but also afterwards through play-based learning. So I think one focus is on Australian seasons, so there's a beautiful focus on that in the story. And in early childhood settings, we do often talk about weather, but I felt that your picture book actually really linked weather well to feelings and experiences and how children can feel that. So, can you tell us a bit about how both the words and the illustrations in the story gently introduce children to those concepts of seasons and weather, I guess in a way that is age-appropriate for preschoolers?

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Yeah, sure. And I think we know that part of the reason early childhood educators spend time talking about weather is because children are naturally connected to it. They're so connected to those seasons and those feelings of, you know, when it's hot or when it's windy or, you know, catching raindrops on your tongue, like they're very connected to the natural world. So, as you said, hopefully within the pages they will see themselves and see those experiences, and that it's a really sensory experience. So the you know, the crunchy leaves or the you know, the playing at the beach, feeling the wind. It's a very sensory sort of story, which again is how children live and learn, isn't it, through their senses when they're so young. So hopefully, with the words and the pictures, even though the language is maybe not all language that children are familiar with, and it you know might extend their vocabulary, the words and the pictures will be a you know a way in for them to see part of their own world and their own understanding. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Oh, it's so wonderful, and that whole sensory connection is so important for them. And so I think for early childhood educators, if they're thinking about using this book within their service, it's a wonderful intentional teaching tool that they can promote conversations around weather and seasons and encourage children, yes, of course, to link to their senses, but also encourage children to notice change. So it might be the trees are changing, the sky is changing. But also I think that we could talk with children about how we're changing what we're wearing. And we see that with the main character, don't we?

SPEAKER_03 9:13

In the little Yeah, I think you know, Alice has done that beautifully, of course. You know, we start in bathers and then later on there's big jackets and raincoats. And so that hopefully children will see themselves in there somewhere, even if they, you know, maybe live up in the top end where they don't have traditional four seasons, they might, you know, notice some of the hot sun pages and then you know, children where it's a lot colder, maybe in some of our more mountainous places. You know, if you live in the blue mountains or somewhere and you know, you're all rubbed up. So we haven't we can as adults, if you track the book, you will see that it does follow the four sort of typical seasons. Yes, but we haven't named them. We haven't said summer, autumn, winter, spring, so that hopefully children and educators can again find their own way in and find the part of the book that is relating to them at that time or you know, some of their memories, so that parts of the story should resonate with everybody.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

It's very cleverly done, Katrina. Thank you. Thank you. Now, another theme that I'd love to chat about today that's covered in this picture book, our birthdays, which also links to children's sense of becoming and the concept of time. It's kind of all wrapped up together. So I think the last line within the book, which is happy birthday, precious one, it's so warm and celebratory of the young child within the story. And I think if we think about our early years learning framework, version 2.0, within our sector, we do focus on children being and belonging and becoming. And birthdays are really a huge part of a child's identity and their sense of becoming, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Oh, I think definitely. If we're looking for you know high-interest sort of ideas to put in a story like the weather is one and then our birthdays rank above everything. You know, we know that children love birthdays because their birthday is all about them. So as you mentioned, when they're, you know, finding identity when it's your birthday that's you know your special day. So the story actually starts and finishes with the child's birthday. So hopefully, yeah, give that sense of the passing of time. And you know, that's what a year is, that the seasons change from one birthday to a next. But in both birthdays, of course, the character is, you know, the star of the show, which is you know what all children love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

And I think that whole concept of growing up, you know, for a preschooler, if they're thinking about a year from one birthday to the next, it can seem like such a long time for them when you're only three or four. So I think if we're linking that kind of calendar year to their own birthday, yeah, it just helps children understand a bit more about that concept of time. And I think in early childhood, they're only just beginning to kind of grasp that idea of the sequence of events and that whole idea of time. So by following those pages within your beautiful picture book, they can start to understand that time is linear, that it does move forward, and maybe things like they could talk about relating to their own world and their own birthdays, that maybe before their birthday it was cold and they wore jumpers, and then after their birthday, it started to get a bit warmer and the flowers started to bloom. And so I think the book provides a bit of a great visual map of a year that will encourage those conversations with children and educators around that concept of time.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah, hopefully. And yeah, like you said, looking at what season their birthday is in, you know, the weather on their birthday, it's a really easy entry point for everybody to think about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Fantastic. Uh now for the third lot of themes that I thought we could chat about today, I think it relates to the illustrations in the way that the picture book is such a visual feast for the eyes, and it covers those themes around living things and colour. So, how did you and Alice work to bring the natural world to the forefront in this picture book through colour?

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Oh, well, I think Alice needs to take all the credit for the colour. She has done such a beautiful job. The illustrations are so sun stunning, and I think they're so rich and so layered. And hopefully, what you know any good picture book does is have the words and the pictures work together so that you know you need both to understand the story. The words, of course, are you know very limited. There's two words on each page or four ways, four words on each double page spread. So Alice has really filled in all the gaps. So if it says something like waves crashed, you splashed, obviously, you know, the child is then making those connections between words and pictures to see that it's you know, the illustration is at the beach and the child is splashing in the waves, and especially the next two lines, sunbeamed, you dreamed, Alice has drawn like a mermaid in the rock pool to suggest that the child is, you know, daydreaming about being a mermaid. So there's so much that she's brought that in terms of the natural world, she's you know, added birds and bugs and koalas and butterflies and all of these beautiful creatures that you know you might spot with a child when you're reading the story, you know, and ask them, Well, can you see the kookaburra? just as we would do when we are outside, and we naturally draw children's attentions to, you know, the flowers and the colours of them and you know the colours of the leaves. So Alice has really added so much richness with all of those details that really helps us just to, you know, look at the natural environment and how beautiful it is.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

I absolutely agree, and I think it definitely is going to warmly invite children to look at living things in their own backyards. And what came to mind for me as well is that it seems like a bit of a story about kind of dual growth. So there's the growth of the child growing throughout the story from birthday to birthday, but also the earth's growth. So we kind of see how that grows and changes throughout the seasons. So yeah, I think those rich colours are really going to help children kind of connect the words that they hear to those beautiful, vivid images they see on the page. And I think I noticed too that the the illustrations have quite a distinct paper collage feel to them. So I thought for our educators and parents listening today, how do those visual layers of the picture book support a young child's early literacy skills?

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Well, I think it encourages them to look deeper, doesn't it? I mean, if the illustrations are quite flat, it's a bit like if the words are flat, there's not a lot of thinking that has to be done. There's not a lot of inquiry or curiosity. But when the illustrations are, you know, layered, and I mean, Alice has used a variety of techniques, you know, which educators may or may not want to talk directly with the children about, but she has used paper cut collage and she has used painted, she has used pastels and drawing and then put it all together on the computer. Wow. When all that it's a very long, I've sort of asked her to explain it, and then she's got, oh well, it's you know, it's huge. But what that creates is you know, these really beautiful illustrations that there is so much to look at and talk about and encourage those conversations so that there is that visual literacy as well as everything else. And I mean, you could also, you know, read the book without any of the words and just read the pictures all the way through because there's so much in there. Yeah, it's really stunning. I was gonna say she's also added the dog. So there's a little dog on almost every page. There's one page when they're in a national park, and so the dog is not there. Um but every other page, the dog is like a companion and a friend playing outdoors with the child. And you know, I think if we're gonna talk about things children love, like the weather and birthdays, dogs are right up there as well. Yes, absolutely. You've got it all. Well, that I've got Alice to thank for that. So there's a little sausage dog on every page, which again is like a whole nother narrative for people to explore.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

That's so good. And I also think that I'm gonna hold it up just for us to talk about. But the front cover, I think that's the illustrations on that are just so beautifully and detailed. So, educators, if when you're reading this book, take time to look at the front cover as well. Look at all the illustrations in there and have a chat about that because those uh images on there are going to actually encourage the children to be excited to read the story together with you as well. And when you're talking about that, there's so much to look at.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

It's really tactile as well, the front cover, because parts of it have spot varnish and parts of it have foil and parts of it are embossed. So, again, for children who like to, you know, touch everything. Yeah, yeah, it's a really tactile front cover as well as being so visually rich. Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

So after you have read this beautiful picture book, Another Year Around the Sun, there are some wonderful ways that you could bring this book to life within your early education setting or at home. So this picture book is an inspired planning pathway for lots of different play and learning experiences across the early childhood curriculum. So, one idea that I'd like to suggest is a pretend play area with a birthday party theme. So you can celebrate the theme in the story, and educators and preschoolers can plan the party together with some invitations and decorations and cooking and games. So I think if you're making the invitations and decorations, you know, you can use a range of different collage materials and your envelopes and texts and all of those things, and encourage children to create the guest lists for their friends and family, or even their toys can come along. And yeah, to promote those early literacy skills, we can invite children to draw pictures of their guests and we can annotate their ideas. And then for the music and the games and the dance at the party, we could invite children to choose some games, you know, things like musical chairs, that kind of thing, and create a playlist together. It's a fun thing to do, and they could share their different cultural styles of music or even include some percussion instruments there. And then also for the dress-ups, I think we could include something like a birthday cake station, you know, with some Play-Doh or Clay, provide those patty pans and rolling pins and candles so the children can pretend to bake a cake and count the candles to represent their age. And then we could also invite children to set up the party with the tables with the crockery and party hats and flowers, and include some costumes too, so everyone loves a good dress up and good party costume. So secondhand stores, of course, that are good for that, and we can add those to our birthday celebration. So that's the first one, and then the next idea, which is the a book-inspired idea, is a focus on the natural world and the colour that we've chatted about today. So on page six of the book, the illustrations actually feature a really gorgeous halo of flowers that surround the child, the main character within this picture book. So, Katrina, how could educators recreate that floral halo in their early education setting?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Such a fun idea, isn't it? And so beautiful. And I guess it depends if people have access to going outside and actually collecting flowers. I mean, that's the best case scenario if you have access to flowers or dried flowers, or sometimes I know educators bring them in if they're very lucky to have a nice blooming garden. I mean, otherwise something, yeah, otherwise, you know, something like tissue paper will work really well, coloured tissue paper or even leaves. And then it's just a case of making like a paper headband for a child, you know, like a strip of paper that you just attach at the back. So it's just like a band around their head, but before attaching it all together, when it's one long strip, the children can attach, you know, the pasting if it's paper, or they might need some sticky if they're flowers, you know, they can attach all those things to their headband before putting it on. And I think they would love that. I think it's just a really yeah, a beautiful idea, and everybody loves to adorn themselves.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

That sounds beautiful, and then I think the last idea we'll share today is some small world play. So on page four of the picture book where it says sunbeamed, you dreamed. This is where children could actually create a small world environment based upon the rock pool illustration. So if you'd like to set up something like this, it's really simple in the way that you could just add a few cups of sand to the bottom of a shallow tray and then fill it a little bit with some water, and then add things like pebbles and rocks and shells to create that height and texture, and then encourage children to explore the different textures of those rocks and shells and feel the cool water on their hands, and then they can start to use their imaginations to create the rock pool environment a bit further themselves. So they could add things like shells, animal shells or starfish, even the fish tank accessories or wooden fish. You could even use some craft materials like green pipe cleaners for the swaying seaweed, and then invite children to include a mermaid or a mythical sea creature in their rock pool, just like in the story. So it's an invitation then when children can retell the story in the sequence of events and perhaps even examine the nature that is there with a little magnifying glass. So this type of story based, small Worldplay is a great way to nurture that child-led imaginative play, which has been inspired by a picture book.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Yay, I love small world play. That's my favorite thing to set up. It's so much fun, isn't it? Getting out little figurines or little animals and your sand and your rocks. And I think we just see children, you know, return to those areas time and time again. So it's really exciting whenever you set one up.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Okay, now so I think that brings us to the end of today's little library episode about the beautiful picture book, Another Year Around the Sun. So it is a heartwarming must-have for any early childhood library, and it beautifully weaves together the natural world and the simple joys of playing outdoors. So, Katrina, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wonderful story with us here today.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Oh, thank you for having me, and thank you so much for honouring, you know, contemporary Australian picture books on your podcast. It's really lovely to you know hear about new books all the time that educators can incorporate.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

And we'd love to see how you're using this picture book in your early learning settings as pathways for play and learning. So please share them with us using hashtag LPT Little Library. And until next time, keep reading, keep learning, playing and thriving.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Learn Play Thrive the podcast. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to fuel your journey in early childhood education. Remember the key to fostering learning, promoting play, and empowering young minds lies within your dedication and creativity. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, rate, or review our podcast on your favourite platform. Your feedback helps us to continue to deliver content that resonates with you. And don't forget to visit us at our website at learnplaythrive.com.au for additional resources, blog posts, and professional development opportunities. Until next time, keep learning, keep playing, and keep thriving. We'll see you in the next episode of Learn Playthrive the podcast.