‘One Red Shoe’ tells of children’s lives in a war zone through the eyes of a press photographer.

Picture books can be amazing teaching tools in the classroom. It’s one reason why we produce extensive teachers’ notes for all our books.

All our notes are written by qualified teachers with a good understanding of how to tie books into the education curriculum.

As a publisher, one of the best parts of the publishing process is the moment we get the teachers’  notes back from our educators and discover some of the ingenious tasks and projects they come up with to engage kids in the classroom.

Sydney teacher-librarian Ian McLean has written a fantastic set of notes for our new title One Red Shoe, Karin Gruss and Tobias Krejtschi’s powerful picture book set in a Middle East war zone.

Because of its subject matter, this is very much a picture book for the mid-to-late years of primary school.

Ian’s done a great job of drawing out many of the book’s educational possibilities. We were particularly taken with a thought-provoking project he did with some students around the symbolism of the colour red. You can view the results on Ian’s blog, which is well worth a visit.