Traditional counting songs

In the early years, the MEP lesson plans call for 'counting songs'.  These interludes are there to prevent brain strain - remember that MEP in a classroom takes 45 minutes, and that's a long time for a small person.  But a well chosen song can have value for another reason too - to practice counting backwards and forwards.  Counting backwards is harder than you think.  If you consider yourself mildly proficient in a second language, try counting backwards from numbers other than ten.  It is pretty hard!  That's what it is like for our youngsters as well.

Here are some of our favourite counting songs.  There are lots of modern ones as well, but this is most of the traditional ones.  Hopefully you'll find something that you and your kiddos like!

For obvious reasons, the ones counting forward and backward are probably best.  Have fun!

(Also, singing counting songs in your foreign language is also great practice...even in the middle of maths!  That's probably another post.)



Once I Caught a Fish Alive

1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
Once I caught a fish alive,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so,
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on the right.



Ten Green Bottles

Ten green bottles
Hanging on the wall
Ten green bottles
Hanging on the wall
And if one green bottle
Should accidentally fall
There'll be nine green bottles
Hanging on the wall

Nine green bottles
Hanging on the wall...and so on.

Finish with:

One green bottle
Hanging on the wall
One green bottle
Hanging on the wall
If that one green bottle
Should accidentally fall
There'll be no green bottles
Hanging on the wall.



There were 10 in the Bed

There were ten in a bed
And the little one said
'Roll over, roll over'
So they all rolled over
And one fell out

There were nine in a bed
And the little one said...etc

Finish with:

There was one in a bed
And the little one said
'Good night!'

There are many variations to this song. We love the one with the following sung between the verses, so if you have just sung the 'There were seven in bed' verse it would be:

Bumped his head,
And gave a shout.
Please remember,
To tie a knot in your pyjamas,
Single beds are only made for (then shouted) Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, six in the bed and...

(Anyone know a YouTube video for this variation?)



10 Little Indian Boys

1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Indians,
4 Little, 5 Little, 6 Little Indians,
7 Little, 8 L9ittle, 9 Little Indians,
10 Little Indian Boys!

Then count down again!



One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

One, two, buckle my shoe,
Three, four, open the door,
Five, six, pick up sticks,
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, the big fat hen,
Eleven, twelve, dig and delve,
Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting,
Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen,
Seventeen, eighteen, ladies waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.




This Old Man

This old man, he played one,
He played knick-knack on my thumb;
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played two,
He played knick-knack on my shoe;
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played three,
He played knick-knack on my knee...etc.

This old man, he played four,
He played knick-knack on my door...etc.

This old man, he played five,
He played knick-knack on my hive...etc.

This old man, he played six,
He played knick-knack on my sticks...etc.

This old man, he played seven,
He played knick-knack up in Heaven...etc.

This old man, he played eight,
He played knick-knack on my gate...etc.

This old man, he played nine,
He played knick-knack on my spine...etc.

This old man, he played ten,
He played knick-knack once again...etc.



Ten Little Ducks

Ten little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck said
'Quack, quack, quack,'
But only nine little ducks came back.

Continues with:

Nine little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away...etc.

Finish:

No little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away
Mother duck said
'Quack, quack, quack,'
And all those ten little ducks came back.



One Bottle of Pop


This is a great song!!

One bottle of pop, two bottles of pop,
Three bottles of pop, four bottles of pop,
Five bottles of pop, six bottles of pop,
Seven, seven, bottles of pop, pop!

Fish and chips and vinegar, vinegar, vinegar
Fish and chips and vinegar,
Pepper, pepper, pepper, salt!

Don't throw your trash in my backyard,
My backyard, my backyard.
Don't throw your trash in my backyard,
My backyard's full!



Five Speckled Frogs

Five little speckled frogs
Sat on a great big log
Eating some moist delicious flies (Yum, yum, yum!)
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Now there are four speckled frogs! (Ribbit, ribbit!)



Five Little Monkeys

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!'.

Four little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped her head...

Finish:

One little monkey jumping on the bed,
He fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"Put those monkeys straight to bed!'.



One Man Went to Mow

One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
One man and his dog - Woof! - went to mow a meadow.

Two men went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
Two men, one man and his dog - Woof! - went to mow a meadow.

Three men went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
Three men, two men, one man and his dog - Woof! - went to mow a meadow.

Four men went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
Four men, three men, two men, one man and his dog - Woof! - went to mow a meadow.

Five men went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
Five men, four men, three men, two men, one man and his dog - Woof! - went to mow a meadow.

You can count as high as you like!

Enjoy!  Have I included your favourite counting song?  If not. leave me a link in the comments.  I'd love to listen.

PS There are as many variations to the lyrics of these songs as there are songs.  The lyrics here are my family's personal favourites.  They're the right ones, of course. Heh.

Here's a playlist for all these songs if you like them like that.

Soft and easy letters

In my Mission School, I offered as a prize a red shirt for the first Chief who knew the whole Alphabet without a mistake. It was won by an Inikahi Chief, who was once a terror to the whole community. Afterwards, when trying to teach the A B C to others, he proceeded in something like this graphic style: "A is a man's legs with the body cut off; B is like two eyes; C is a three-quarters moon; D is like one eye; E is a man with one club under his feet and another over his head; F is a man with a large club and a smaller one," etc., etc.; L was like a man's foot; Q was the talk of the dove, etc. Then he would say, "Remember these things; you will soon get hold of the letters and be able to read. I have taught my little child, who can scarcely walk, the names of them all. They are not hard to hold, but soft and easy. You will soon learn to read the book, if you try it with all your heart!"

The Story of John G. Paton: Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals by Rev. James Paton

This description in our read-aloud today of how the Inikahi Chief learned the sounds and shapes of the letters of the alphabet reminds me a whole lot of the way Jemimah learned her alphabet using the H A Rey book, Curious George Learns the Alphabet. You can read about it here.

In the book each letter is turned into an animal or common object beginning with that letter, in much the same way as the Chief assigned an object to his. To this uncivilised cannibal, an F looked like a man with one large club and one small one; to George the big F looks like a fireman fighting a fire with his leg out straight.To the Chief a B is two eyes; to George it is a blue bird with a fat tummy.

For a long time after Jemimah learned to read she would spell out a word and say Y - yak or W - whiskers and I would know that she was visualising the shape from the Curious George book. The book and its way of depicting the letters certainly played a major part in my daughter learning how to read easily and painlessly.

Obviously from today's story, she is not the first to learn by this process.

Letters, in the delightful words of that Inikahi Chief, "... are not hard to hold, but soft and easy. You will soon learn to read the book, if you try it with all your heart!"

You can buy Curious George Learns the Alphabet as an iPad app now, if you've any small people who are at that stage. I haven't seen it, but if it is anything like the book, then it'll be great.

I've been usurped

...and I don't mind in the slightest.

Who could resent being passed over in favour of Daddy for bedtime story-time when a peek in at the door shows this?

Awwwww. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, that does.

They're reading this lovely new edition of Elisabeth Beresford's The Wombles, illustrated by Nick Price, and apparently I don't read it nearly as well as Daddy.

If you're a Wombles fan like I am, you won't want to miss out on a copy of this sumptuous edition, lavishly illustrated on every page, and with an accompanying CD read by Bernard Cribbins OBE, the original voice of the Wombles.

You can listen to an audio clip in the books section of the official The Wombles Books website, if you want. If you're of...ahem...a certain age... as I am, the sound of that rich voice will take you right back to your childhood.

I tried reading an older unillustrated version to Jemimah a couple of years ago and it didn't go down very well. Perhaps it's a book that only Daddy can read? I don't know. Anyhow, this time it's going down a treat.

One of the things I love most about Mr PD is that he is totally involved in the raising of our daughter. He spends lots of time thinking about how he can be a better father, and he is totally committed to our family. He reads to her, rides bikes with her, paints with her, dreams with her. He also thinks about ways to help make her a better person, and he disciplines her with love.

That's what I see when I look at my favourite two people cuddling together at bedtime. And it makes me the happiest that I can be.

I love my family.

20 Top Early Childhood Songs

The Deputy Headmistress is asking for your list of the most important 20 songs of early childhood. Here's mine:

1. Mary Had a Little Lamb
2. London Bridge
3. Jack and Jill
4. Ring a Ring o' Roses
5. Three Blind Mice
6. Humpty Dumpty
7. Hickory Dickory Dock
8. Baa Baa Black Sheep
9. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
10. Little Bo Peep
11. Old McDonald had a Farm
12. Sing a Song of Sixpence
13. Jesus Loves Me
14. Polly Put the Kettle On
15. Row Row Row your Boat
16. I'm a Little Teapot
17. Miss Polly Had a Dolly
18. The Farmer in the Dell
19. Incy Wincy Spider
20. Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush

There are lots and lots once you get started. What would you add? Don't forget the rules - if you add one, you have to delete one as well!!

Silly goose

It's a Book.That's it. A BOOK!

"Come to think of it, just the other day I heard Mr Pumpkin telling Bill that Books are very precious. 'He who owns Books and loves them is wise.' That is what he said.

"He who owns Books and loves them is wise, repeated Petunia to herself. And she thought as hard and as long as she could. "Well then," she said at last, "if I take this Book with me, and love it, I will be wise too. And no one will call me a silly goose ever again."

So Petunia picked up the Book and off she went with it.

She slept with it...

She swam with it.

And knowing that she was so wise, Petunia also became proud,

and prouder

and prouder...

Petunia Roger Duvoisin 1950

If you are lost in a fairytale

Looks interesting, doesn't it. You'll find the words to the poem here.

What do you think?

While we're on the topic: Fairy tales - good or bad? And why?

Which one would you like to be lost in?

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Will you succeed?
Yes, you will indeed.
(98¾ percent guaranteed).

Oh joy!

Dr Seuss's final book as a pop up. Imagine that.

This book tackling life and its challenges works beautifully at 5, but it works equally well when your teen leaves home for university at 18, and when a friend finds herself suddenly single at 40. After all, nobody's too old to be reassured that their head is full of brains and their shoes are full of feet and that they're too smart to go down any not-so-good street, are they?

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

Sometimes life will go your way; sometimes it won't:

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don't.
Because, sometimes you won't.

I always have a couple of these lovely books to post to friends in crisis, and this pop-up version will be a sublime addition to my Present Drawer. I love it.

As an aside, Julia Eccleshare in her book, 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up says that this book is often described as being a Christian book; others vehemently disagree. What do you think?

The Runaway Bunny

Don't the beautifully simple but profound words of Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny remind you of David's in Psalm 139?

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139:7-10 NIV

Isn't it comforting to know that whatever we're doing and wherever we are, he is there with us, loving us, protecting us and guiding us in the way we should go?

I like that.

Don't forget to tell your kids.

10 of the best Aussie picture books

My Grandma lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base

1. The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek by Jenny Wagner
2. My Place by Nadia Wheatley
3. The Man from Snowy River A B Paterson illustrated by Freya Blackwood
4. Are We There Yet? A Journey around Australia by Alison Lester
5. A Year on Our Farm by Penny Matthews
6. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
7. My Grandma lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base
8. Window by Jeannie Baker
9. A Bush Christmas by C J Dennis illustrated by Dee Huxley
10. The Potato People by Pamela Allen

Do you agree? What would you put on the list to make it 20 of the best? If you're not an Aussie, why not hop over to The Peaceful Community and tell us 10 of the best picture books from your country? I for one would love to see what you come up with. For what is is worth, I limited myself to one book for each author. You might like to do the same. Or not.

Mel's list is here!

Make Way For Ducks

Farmer Schulz lived on the beautiful Onkaparinga River in South Australia. He was a busy man and his farm was a busy place. There were cows and geese and goats and vegetables and fruit trees and cellars full of German sausage and dishes of scalded cream. And in the yard at the back of the house there were more than fifty ducks.

Farmer Schulz's ducks were the loveliest ducks in the whole world.


Every morning after breakfast Farmer Schultz would open the backyard gate so that the ducks could go down the drive and across the road and down to the Onkaparinga River. The cars would stop for the ducks because everyone knew that the ducks had right of way.

Then the city beyond the hills began to grow and along with it came the traffic.

Sometimes they didn't even stop for ducks!

Farmer Schulz called the family together to think of a solution.


The Schulz's come up with many solutions - the bridge is one of them. Will it work? Will the ducks get across the road and into the water or do the family finally give up on the ducks?

You'll need to buy the book to find out, won't you?

It's called Farmer Schulz's Ducks and it's by Colin Thiele. It is out of print (of course!) but is available here and here. (It is difficult to find in secondhand bookshops although I found one eventually.) The book was shortlisted by the Children’s Book Council of Australia for the 1987 award as Book of the Year for Younger Readers.

Colin Thiele's books are often written for older kids. With this book I've had children as young as three hanging on every word. It is truly delightful.

Robert McCloskey's Make Way For Ducklings is a wonderful contrast to this book. McCloskey's Caldecott Medal winning book tells the story of a family of ducks who have to cross a busy Boston street.

City-Country.

America-Australia.

The two work wonderfully together.

Ruth Marshall has a book study on Farmer Schulz's Ducks that you might like to check out. You can read more from me on Colin Thiele too, if you want to.

A Goodnight with Mem Fox

A couple of true blue bedtime stories tonight by Australia's queen of storytelling, Mem Fox. Possum Magic, Mem's first book, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over three and a half million. If you haven't heard it then enjoy it now!





See you in the morning eh?

Goodnight Peeps

See you in the morning.

Goodnight.

Will this help?

Hmmm I don't know if Sarah Dyer's new book, The Girl with the Bird's-Nest Hair will help or hinder. You can probably hear the yells that sometimes emanate from Jemimah's bathroom at hair brushing time from as far away as Sydney!! Surely I don't pull that much - do I?

Regardless of its help in solving one of the loudest problems in the process of daily life, I just love the look of this book. Look at the fantastic illustrations...

Unfortunately the time is coming that I will no longer be able to justify the purchase of children's picture books. I'm going to take a good look at this one though. It just appeals, somehow.

Its release is June in the US, August in Oz.

Cute.

Twaddly? Probably...

An Awesome Book

Do you dream about 'matching silverware' or 'rocket powered unicorns'; 'furniture' or 'magic watermelon boats'?

The Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton gets New Living Book status from me...for sure.

View the whole book online - awesome!

Here is Oz you can buy The Awesome Book from we ♥ books - one of my favourite online bookstores for $29.95.

While you're visiting, take a look at their range of Charley Harper books and flashcards for kids. We love them! Jemimah took his colouring book on hols with her - it is not your usual colour within the lines mindless colouring book, that's for sure. (Even I can produce something pretty stylish with this book!)

Reading out loud

This is just priceless...


You know, I always thought I was pretty good at telling Children's Stories. Wrong. This is how it's done...

I totally underestimated We're Going on a Bear Hunt when Jemimah was a preschooler. I thought it was twaddle. I was wrong...again. Years later, she can still recite it word perfectly - not as well as Michael Rosen, but pretty well. It has certainly made a lasting impression on her.

Here is my confession in writing:

We're Going on a Bear Hunt is truly a Living Book. I'm sorry I never bought it for you, Jemimah...

Don't leave this off your list, will you?

Memories of Childhood

Once upon a time, one beautiful summer morning, Milly-Molly-Mandy woke up very early.

She knew it was very early, because Father and mother were not moving (Milly-Molly-Mandy's cot-bed was in one corner of Father's and Mother's room). And she knew it was a beautiful summer morning, because the cracks around the window-blinds were so bright she could hardly look at them.

Milly Molly Mandy, (whose full name was really Millicent Margaret Amanda) knelt up on the foot of her cot-bed and softly lifted one corner of the blind, and peeped out.

And it was the most beautiful, quiet summer morning that ever was.

And so begins one of my favourite books of all time. (Do you know it? Is this starting to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?)

Anyhow, it's called More of Milly-Molly-Mandy, and it's the second of six books about a little girl with a very long name who lived with her Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Auntie in a nice white cottage with a thatched roof.

Everybody knows everybody in the village where Milly-Molly-Mandy lives. Everyone is cared for; everyone is happy; eveyone is loved. Milly-Molly-Mandy is clever, sensible, and sweet. Let's just come out and admit it - Milly-Molly-Mandy is just plain nice. Together with her friends, Billy Blunt and Little Friend Susan, Milly-Molly-Mandy has lots of adventures, and lots of fun.

I remember cuddling on my grandmother's knee, hearing the familiar much repeated phrases trip off her tongue in such a delightful way. The books are perfect for reading aloud. They're written simply for children as young as four, and yet they're not trite, and they're not twaddly. My grandmother had read these very same books to my mother many years before. I wonder what she thought as she read them to me? Later I read them to myself. They're perfect first chapter books for emerging readers, with a Lexile somewhere around the mid 400's, I reckon.

We've come a full circle. First I read them to Jemimah, then she read them to me. Now she reads them to herself. I hope that in turn she'll read them to her children - or maybe I will. I like that idea.

There are six Milly-Molly-Mandy books, 'told and drawn' by Joyce Lankester Brisley between 1928 and 1968. The first four are still in print - and have been continually since they were first published. Not bad for a 'minor author' as she often referred to. ..does this make her a major minor author?

In order:

Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
More of Milly-Molly-Mandy
Further doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy
Milly-Molly-Mandy Again
Milly-Molly-Mandy & Co.
Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt

None of the modern versions I've seen contain Brisley's beautiful colour plates. (They make my post look prettier though, don't they!) Be sure to ensure that you purchase a version with the original black and white line drawings, though. They're integral to the story.


Check that your version also has a map of the village inside the front cover. They're simple and clear, but they let you know exactly where each event happens in relation to the all important nice white cottage with the thatched roof. We can't have Milly-Molly-Mandy getting lost now, can we?


The map would be perfect for CM style mapping lessons. The inimitable Ruth Marshall has information on this - and more in her lesson plans for the Milly-Molly-Mandy books. You can access those here.

While you're visiting Ruth's site, be sure to stop a while and browse a bit. It contains a veritable treasure trove of Aussie homeschooling information. Without this lady's amazing website I never would have had the courage to start homeschooling in the first place. She's one amazing mum.

Milly-Molly-Mandy is one amazing little girl too. Don't let your kids miss out of befriending her, will you?

It's good to be sitting still,
And it's good to be running wild,
And it's good to be by yourself alone
Or with another child.

And whether the child's grown up,
Or whether the child is small,
So long as it really is a Child
It doesn't matter at all.

Joyce Lankester Brisley

One in a thousand

My charming neighbour, Barney, is a 'water-witcher'. He tells us that an underground stream runs through the corner of his property and on into ours. He tells me that if we drill a muckle big and ugly hole in the back corner of the Native Garden we'll find enough water for our garden for years...or forever...he says. Unfortunately, he can't tell me if the water will be fresh or brackish...

Apparently there is a great subterranean river running through our town. With the ongoing drought, and no water, people have become more willing to accept the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there might just be something in this water-divining business, and they've actually gone ahead and drilled where Barney has told them to. Mostly they've struck water. Sometimes it has been fresh, clear usable water too.

You'll notice that we haven't. Call it my cynical scientific mind, but I have a lot of trouble believing things that can't be explained scientifically (except creation...and anything in the Bible, but that's what faith is, isn't it?).

Reputable geologists, the type I believe without even checking their facts, assure us that there is a great supply of ground water beneath the earth's surface, and that a great aquifer does in fact lie beneath much of our town. Because the water table has not been lowered too much by the over use of this water in the past, useful amounts of it occur in several areas.

So where does this leave Barney?

Well, I think it leaves him in the enviable position of being more likely than most water diviners to 'get it right'. There is more water down there, so it is more likely that he will randomly guess right and find some, wherever it is we drill.

To me, water divining is a superstitious practice based on ignorance. Because we can't see ground water, it becomes something of a mystery. I think it is because ground water is somewhat magical itself, people are more likely to accept the claims of nice people like Barney who say that they have some special gift for finding ground water using a forked stick wound with coat hanger wire. Barney claims that the special magnetic force running through the water makes the wire bend towards it when he stands right above it. Umm...magnetic water?

Anyway, now that I've got down from my soapbox, let's get back to living books in general and Jan Ormerod's Water Witcher specifically.

Dougie's grandfather had the rare and mysterious gift of water witching. It's a drought and it's the Depression.

Dougie and his sisters can’t remember the last time it rained. The rainwater tanks are empty, and the creek is just a string of muddy pools. They can see the tracks of animals that come seeking water.

Each day Dad and Dougie cart water from Last Stop Well, an hour down the track. They haul the water up bucket by bucket to fill the tank on the dray, then bump back over the ruts, making clouds of dust. The crops are brown and crisp in the sun.

Dougie wishes he were a water witcher — then they would have a well of their own, always full of water. So Dougie teaches himself the art of water divining. His sisters tease him. Even his mother doubts, but despite it all, Dougie keeps on trying:

It has to do whatever it does, no matter what I'm thinking about.

Eventually, of course, Dougie does find water. Cool, fresh, clear, abundant, life-giving water.

"You are one in a thousand, son," says Dad proudly.

"You are a water witcher, just like your grandfather."

Water Witcher brings rural Australia to life. We really see what it was like to live in Australia during that incredibly hard time in our history. That's what a true living book does, and Jan Ormerod does it incredibly well in this book.

Whether you explain to your kids that water witching is just a superstition, or whether you allow it to stand as a cute story in itself will be up to individual families. I did explain to Jemimah that we didn't believe it was true, and it didn't prevent her enjoying the book.

On the other hand, she's seen Barney in action...

Inside all of us is adventure

Are you as excited about the release of this movie as we are?

We all loved the book of Where the Wild Things Are. What's your first impression of the movie? A new classic, or too scary for your kiddywinks? It's due for release on October 16th.

What am I, what am I?

The Australian bunyip didn't loom large in my consciousness as a child. The mythical creatures of my formative years were the hobyahs - probably, well, okay definitely, as a consequence of my mother and her sisters' nostalgic affection for the story from Book Two of The Victorian Readers of their childhood. The result was that the hobyah's came 'creep, creep, creeping' into my bedroom in much the same was as they crept into the dreams of my mother and my aunts all those years before.

Fortunately, the bunyip wasn't completely excluded from my upbringing, however, because in 1973 Jenny Wagner published The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek - too late for me, maybe, but not too late for my younger sister. Better late than never, I came to love it too.

I still feel sad when I read this wonderful but haunting picture book . It tells the story of a bunyip that emerges from the muddy bottom of Berkeley's Creek to ask the question:

What am I, what am I, what am I?

A passing platypus solves the riddle:

You are a bunyip.

Bunyips are "horrible," the wallaby tells him, "horrible" With "horrible tails, and even more horrible fur," adds the emu. Finally he meets a man...

"Can you please tell me what bunyips look like?"
"Yes," said the man, without looking up.
"Bunyips don't look like anything."
"Like nothing?" said the bunyip.
"Like nothing at all." said the man.

Starting to feel sad yet? The bunyip was shaken - as you would be. It's not every day you're told you don't exist. The bunyip walks away to a quiet, still billabong, where he can be as handsome as he likes. Things are looking dark and lonely until late that night something emerges from the muddy bottom of the billabong to ask the question:

What am I, what am I, what am I?

This time it is the bunyip who knows the answer to the question, and he jumps up in delight.

You are a bunyip! You look just like me.

(Collective sigh of pleasure...)

Bunyips originated in Aboriginal folklore well before European settlement of Australia. They must be one of the few dreamtime creatures to cross the cultural divide and to become as popular among our early colonial settlers as they were amongst the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

As our children pass through the pages of Australian living books, they'll come across the bunyip time and time again. Take this section in Ethel Pedley's Dot and the Kangaroo as an example.

From the desolate morass, and from the gully in darkness below, came the sound of a bellowing. She stopped crying and listened, and could hear those awesome voices all around, and the echoes made them still more hobgoblinish. The Kangaroo's eyes brightened, as she restrained her panting, and listened also.... "The Bunyip! the Bunyip!" and they tumbled over one another in their hurry to get away from a place haunted, as they thought, by that wicked demon which they fear so much. At full speed they fled back to their camp, with the sound of Dot's cries, and the mysterious bellowing noise, following them on the breeze; and they never stopped running until they regained the light of their camp fires.

They'll read how Snugglepot and Cuddlepie go to war against the bunyip in May Gibb's The Adventures of Bib and Bub, and meet him again in Patricia Wrighton's novel The Ice is Coming:

It was a thing of many kinds that could not be truly seen, but its red eyes were like death and its bellow was like fear. It was like a calf, like a seal, like a man; it was white, it was black … It was all these things, together and separate, in one fearful beast … It was feathered, or furred, or scaly. You could not tell what it was except that it was dreadful …

The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek is a great introduction to the bunyip. Don't miss it.


If I've piqued your interest in this fascinating creature, The National Library of Australia's online exhibition, Bunyips, is unbeatable. This award-winning animated site tells the story of the Bunyip over the years and how it has been represented in art, literature and living culture. It is great!

Hairy Maclary

It's hard to imagine that an Aussie kid since the '80's could have grown up without Hairy Maclary. He might not be Australian, but we Aussies are very good at subsuming everything Kiwi under our own Australian mantle, much the same way that America does to Canada.

Anyway, back to the irrepressible Skye terrier. The books bearing his name deserve their title of classics. They're also wonderful living books for the ankle-biters. New Zealand author Lynley Dodds doesn't speak down to children. She uses words like bumptious, bellicose, boisterous, cantankerous, pilfered, pillaged, and cacophony...for two year olds!! What's more, the kids understand them because they're introduced in context. They're fun words that sound interesting when spoken out loud. Often they're onomatopoeic - they sound like the action they described - cacophony, for example.

Kids love Hairy and his animal friends including Schnitzel von Krumm, the dachshund, and Scarface Claw the maniacal cat. You don't have to be antipodean to enjoy them either. For those of you overseas, take a look at the YouTube video of the first Hairy Maclary book, above. I guarantee that your toddler'll be back for more!!

Try reading them out loud - fast!

(P.S. For those of you who aren't fluent in 'New Zealandish', a dairy is a corner shop - not a milking shed or a dairy farm...)