Children’s Author Sarah Brennan Visits a TK Grade 2 Bilingual Class

by Nadine Bailey, Teacher Librarian, TK -

Grade 2 Bilingual students at TK had a very special guest in early September. Sarah Brennan, an Australian author living in Hong Kong, paid a visit to tell the story of her latest book called “The Tale of Rodney Ram”. Sarah engaged her audience of 7 year old students with this beautiful legend of how rice came to China following the footsteps of the famous Ram in the Chinese horoscope.

The Tale of Rodney Ram is the 9th book in Sarah Brennan’s 'calendar tales'. Each calendar tale takes a character from the chinese zodiac and cleverly weaves it into a rhyming story that involves famous people or Chinese legends. In this case, students learnt all about the legend of how rice came to China, and the origin of the famous Ram statue in Guangzhou.

With her animated storytelling style, Sarah encouraged students to interact with her and to help Sarah finish the rhymes at the end of the couplets. Through the story, students learnt why it is the year of the ram, sheep or goat (depending on where you live), and about refugees fleeing due to famine - a problem that has been around since antiquity.

Sarah helped students understand the Ram’s personality traits of creativity, sensitivity and shyness, and masterfully linked it back to the IB learner profile traits of caring, respect, empathy and creativity. She also shared with children her personal story and battle with shyness, and how becoming good at writing has helped her overcome that shyness. After the talk she presented the library with her book and the class with a lovely bookmark, and invited them all to enter her latest writing competition, which is open to all primary students. Sarah ended the session by encouraging students to persevere in their artistic endeavours.