ANZAC DAY

We read two picture books as part of our study this year for ANZAC Day. The first would more properly be read on Remembrance Day here in Australia as it talks about the symbolism of wearing individual poppies but in New Zealand this is (or was when I was a child) an Anzac Day tradition and
so we read the first book and I explained the New Zealand connection.

Also a "significant" memory for me surrounding Anzac Day was my Std 4 teacher reading

an extract

from the book "Gallipoli" by John Masefield. Of course I didn't know at 10 that he was Poet Laureate for England at that time or that he wrote the book as a counter foil

to German propaganda that was spreading in the States around the time of the Gallipoli offensive

But the lyrical and emotive style(better than any enlistment poster as far as my 10 year old personality was concerned) have always remained as a vague shadow imprinted in my mind as so much of childhood is.And so I bequeathed to the boys this ANZAC day rememberance tradition .

Finally we read this picture book which had such a positive take on community and building memories(deliberate but poor play on story)



Of course no post in our family on ANZAC day would be complete without mentioning in passing the interesting discussions/debates/conversations on the remembering with older children and just how we should observe this remembering.