The story of Lachlan Macquarie

I wonder what you know about New South Wales' fifth Governor, Lachlan Macquarie.  If you're like most Aussies, you'll recognise his name because of the things named after him - Canberra's suburb of Macquarie and Lachlan Street, Sydney's Macquarie Street and Macquarie Place and Hobart's Macquarie Street, Macquarie Island south of Tasmania, Lake Macquarie on the NSW coast, the Macquarie River in NSW and the Macquarie River in Tasmania, Port Macquarie, and the Lachlan River to name a few.  Maybe you've sat it Mrs Macquarie's Chair, overlooking Bennelong Point and the Sydney Opera House. The inscription on his tomb on Mull in Scotland names him "The Father of Australia" and yet we know longer know who he is. Should we?

Arriving in Australia in 1810, Macquarie took up the position of Governor vacated by William Bligh who had been deposed by the military during the 1808 Rum Rebellion (remember that?). From the beginning Macquarie saw the colony as both a settlement as well as a penal colony.  "This country," he wrote, "should be made the happy home of every emancipated convict who deserves it." He was frustrated by what he referred to as 'the party spirit' - the class divisions and factional fighting that were so rife in the colony. "Free settler in general...are by far the most contented persons in the colony," he wrote to the colonial office in England.

Macquarie believed that the solution to the convict problem was to put them to work. During his 12 years as Governor Macquarie was responsible for over 250 new buildings, including churches, schools and hospitals.  He built roads and tidied up the design of Sydney's streets. He built Sydney into a city as fine as any in the world. But England was not keen that Sydney become too attractive.  New South Wales was meant as a place of punishment and they worried that people might actually commit crimes in order to be transported!

Macquarie produced the first official currency for the new colony. He authorised exploration of the 'west' beyond the Blue Mountain where well watered grassland and forests were discovered.  It was Macquarie who ordered all traffic on New South Wales roads to keep left. He encouraged the creation of the colony's first bank. He drew up plans for Castlereigh, Pitt Town, Richmond, Wilberforce and Windsor.

The Startling Story of Lachlan Macquarie - Founding Father of Failure by Michael Sedunary and illustrated by Bern Emmerichs goes some way towards introducing Australian kids to the unfairly forgotten  Governor Macquarie.  It's an oddly sophisticated book, and I am not quite sure who its written for.  It is aimed at kids of 10-12, but I suspect that without some prior history knowledge the story would go over the heads of most of them.  It's a long book using complex language and discussing deep questions, and  I suspect that most kids would lose interest long before the end. That said, it is wonderful for use as part of a study of Australian History. It is well balanced, discussing Macquarie's considerable accomplishments with his many less than stellar decisions.  It covers Macquarie's treatment of the Aborigines in a way that is sensitive to our native Australians but without falling into the trap of revising history inappropriately with the wisdom of hindsight and putting our modern worldview onto past events.

Sadly the book paints Reverend Samuel Marsden as a villain, referring to his moniker as 'the flogging parson' and telling the story of the public lending library - which is probably true, but without balancing the considerable good also accomplished by this powerful man of God.  I am saddened by this. So it is not perfect, but in general The Startling Story of Lachlan Macquarie is an excellent book for a child keen to learn more about the early history of our great country and willing to put in the work to understand it.  It is also great for use as part of a history study for school.  Those of you using my Australianised AmblesideOnline will want to grab up a copy for use during both cycles through Aussie history - it is well worth using twice, and who knows how long it will be in print?

The Startling Story of Lachlan Macquarie is the third in a series by this author - illustrator trio and published by Berbay Books.  The first two are The Unlikely Story of Bennelong and Phillip and William Bligh - a Stormy Story of Tempestuous Times.  I haven't seen either of these but I am keen to.  I am sure they would be excellent.

So there you are.  Hopefully you now know more about Governor Macquarie.  Perhaps once you read the book you will be able to decide whether he deserves to be remembered as the father of Australia.  Do tell me what you think. Can a country really have a father anyhow?

We're all Australians now.

I'm a big believer in commemorating Anzac Day and remembering those who fought so we might be free. I'm also a great fan of our National bard, Banjo Paterson, and of the illustrations of Mark Wilson. Put them all together and you're going to have a pretty special book.

We're All Australians Now was published in 2015 but I only discovered it the other day in my local Australia Post store. Have a look and see if yours has a copy too. It was $9.99.

When Australians went to war in 1914, Australia had been a nation for all of 13 minutes. Well years, really, but it's still a really short time to forge a national identity, isn't it? The brave men and women who fought together in WWI as Australians played a great part in defining us as a people, as a country, as Aussies. By 1915, we had already suffered through Gallipoli when Banjo Paterson penned an open letter to Australian troops there at The Dardanelles , a poem entitled We're All Australians Now.

The book is Mark Wilson's beautifully illustrated rendering of that poem.

Here's a copy of the poem if you really can't find the book, but do try. As I say, it's pretty special. It's times like this that I remember that living books really are still being published. And that's a really good thing.

We're All Australians Now'

Australia takes her pen in hand

To write a line to you,

To let you fellows understand

How proud we are of you.

From shearing shed and cattle run,

From Broome to Hobson's Bay,

Each native-born Australian son

Stands straighter up today.

The man who used to "hump his drum",

On far-out Queensland runs

Is fighting side by side with some

Tasmanian farmer's sons.

The fisher-boys dropped sail and oar

To grimly stand the test,

Along that storm-swept Turkish shore,

With miners from the west.

The old state jealousies of yore

Are dead as Pharaoh's sow,

We're not State children any more —

We're all Australians now!

Our six-starred flag that used to fly

Half-shyly to the breeze,

Unknown where older nations ply

Their trade on foreign seas,

Flies out to meet the morning blue

With Vict'ry at the prow;

For that's the flag the Sydney flew,

The wide seas know it now!

The mettle that a race can show

Is proved with shot and steel,

And now we know what nations know

And feel what nations feel.

The honoured graves beneath the crest

Of Gaba Tepe hill

May hold our bravest and our best,

But we have brave men still.

With all our petty quarrels done,

Dissensions overthrown,

We have, through what you boys have done,

A history of our own.

Our old world diff'rences are dead,

Like weeds beneath the plough,

For English, Scotch, and Irish-bred,

They're all Australians now!

So now we'll toast the Third Brigade

That led Australia's van,

For never shall their glory fade

In minds Australian.

Fight on, fight on, unflinchingly,

Till right and justice reign.

Fight on, fight on, till Victory

Shall send you home again.

And with Australia's flag shall fly

A spray of wattle-bough

To symbolise our unity —

We're all Australians now.

Here's Wallis and Matilda's version set to music. It's pretty special, too.

 

One minute's silence

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

 

Did you remember our Diggers this morning? Did you recite the ode, listen to the Last Post and observe a minute's silence?

What did you think about as you stood in quiet contemplation?

You probably thought about the brave young Aussies risking their lives so that we could have peace in our land, but did you also think about the young Turks fighting to save their land from the invaders?

You may have remembered our fallen heroes, but did you remember the Turks who never went home again either? They're buried there together, side by side. Did you think of that when the second hand clicked slowly round?

Did you think about the tragedy and the futility of war, and honour the men in both sides of the conflict, who fought for the land and the people they loved?

One Minute's Silence written by David Metzenthen and illustrated superbly by Michael Camilleri tells the story of a class of young people observing a minute's silence, just like we did, and probably like you did, too. And as they wait, they imagine themselves as soldiers at Gallipoli, and they think about how it would have been.

In one minute’s silence……

you can imagine the grinding in your guts as the ironbark bows of the Australian boats bumped the stony shore of Gallipoli on the twenty-fifth of April, 1915… when twelve thousand wild colonial boys dashed across the shivering Turkish sand in the pale light of a dairy farmer’s dawn lashed with flying lead.

But can you imagine, in one minute’s silence, lines of young Turkish soldiers from distant villages, hearts hammering, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in trenches cut like wounds… firing on the strangers wading through the shallows, intent on streaming into the homeland of the Turkish people.

This is a wonderful book to share with your children as you commemorate Remembrance Day, and observe a minute's silence together.

Today when Jemimah and I stood together we remembered our loved ones who fought for us in the "war to end all wars", the men and women who have fought in other wars, our peacekeeping troops, and their loved ones left at home alone. But we also remembered the soldiers we fought against, and it was powerful.

I think when you read this book, you'll think so too.

Lest We Forget

 

 

The Nargun and the Stars

(E)very spirit appearing in this and my two previous stories, The Nargun and the Stars and An Older Kind of Magic, belongs originally to Australia and its Aborigines. Many of them are beliefs still living; some are remembered from a generation ago; a few have outlived the people who believed in them. They claim their place in an old convention, these even older and perhaps purer spirits of the Aborigines’ domestic life. And I claim a writer’s leave to employ them in my own stories in my own way.

Patricia Wrightson, The Ice is Coming, 1977

Patricia Wrightson never pretended to be an Australian Aborigine, nor did she pretend to write on their behalf. Which is why I find it sad that her name is to be found nowadays amongst those who have misappropriated Aboriginal identity. Her books, whilst incredibly popular in her time, are little known today, and few are still in print. To me, Wrightson gives these Aboriginal spirits dignity. Her books make me proud to be an Australian, they teach me something about my country, and help me to see Aboriginal myth and storytelling as something worthy of remembering and enriching to my Australian identity. While I am still excited to find quality children’s literature written by Aboriginal authors, Oodgeroo Nooniccal, Dick Roughsey, Sally Morgan, I believe there is still a place for the superb writing of this much awarded white Australian author.

Patricia Wrightson’s books bring to life the magic of the Aboriginal world. Instead of the Brownies and the Boggarts of England, her books contain Pot-kooroks, Nyols, Turongs, and the Nargan. Ah yes, the Nargan.

The Nargun and the Stars is probably the best written of Wrightson’s books, and I scheduled it as a family read aloud as part of Jemimah’s AO8. It’s the story of Simon Brent, who is sent to live with his elderly cousins, Charlie and Edie, on the death of his parents in a car accident. Charlie and Edie are farm folk, and for Simon the countryside of Wongadilla is a whole new world. How can he live with these people that he doesn’t know and can’t relate to? He doesn’t even feel that he can bring himself call them by their names, so he calls them nothing.

But Edie and Charlie are more than just farmers. They’ve lived all their lives at Wongadilla, and they really know the land. They may be white, but they have the knowledge usually held only by the Aborigines, and they know the creatures with whom they share their farm:

Edie and I used to talk sometimes: whatever there was before white men came, like elves and spirits and that, they must live somewhere when you come to think about it. We only know the Wongadilla ones, because they’ve always been here and we happened to come across them when we were kids. I reckon most people never even dream of ‘em. Never expected you to see ‘em either, at least not for a good while yet.

But Simon has seen them. And heard them. And spoken with them. Simon has also done something that Charlie and Edie had never done – he has met the Nargun. The Nargun is a great rock spirit, older than time itself, and it doesn’t belong at Wongadilla. The Nargun is angry, and when it starts to kill the sheep, and seems to be threatening Charlie and Edie and Simon as well, it is clear that it needs to go.

As Charlie works with Edie and Charlie to drive the Nargun away, he learns to love and respect them as well, but he also learns to love the land that is now his home. He comes to know the ancient spirit creatures – the mischevious Pot-koorok, the Turongs and the Nyols, and he learns to work with them to find a way to rid the land of the Nargun. But how to move something that can shake the universe? That has always been since before the beginning of the world? That is only controlled by the rhythm of the earth?

This is a great book, filled with deep issues for further discussion – the need to care for the environment, Aboriginal spirituality and ‘Dreamings’, Australian mythology, the poetic style of Wrightson’s writing. It is a wonderful book for AO8 Australian literature, and my family enjoyed it very much. Better still The Nargun and the Stars is in print here.

 

Tea and Sugar Christmas

I bought this book sight unseen, based on the title and the name of the illustrator, but look how beautiful the cover is.  When I saw it, I thought it was a keeper, and it is.

To start with, it is a wonderful addition to a very sparse selection of really lovely Australian Christmas Picture Books.  There are some really fun books, of course, but few that really deserve the title of Living Book.  This one looks beautiful, is truly Australian, and is historically educational to boot.

It's the story of a young girl called Kathleen who lives in a settlement along the line of the Tea and Sugar Train, the train that travelled from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie across the Nullarbor Plain.   The train only travelled the line once a week, and it passed Kathleen's township on a Thursday.  Settlements along the track had no stores or services, so the train was truly a lifeline, bringing groceries, fresh meat, books, and mail from the outside world.  Once a year though, the Tea and Sugar Train, always a special occasion, become something magical.  Once a year it became the Christmas train, and along with the tea and sugar, Father Christmas travelled the line.

This week, Kathleen and her mum and dad had run out of tea and sugar, but it wasn't the groceries that they looked forward to, of course.  It was that jolly man with a blinding white beard and clothes of Christmas red.  Just like in the pictures.  What do you think happened next? Do you think Kathleen saw him?

 The pictures in the book are truly magnificent, fold out, double page coloured paintings interspersed with delightful pencil sketches.  I adore the authentic cutaway of the railway carriages, but each page is exquisite.  Jane Jolly, a new name to me, has written a sweet, historically correct, story, which really makes you wish that the Tea and Sugar still travelled the line and that you could go and visit it.  It did me, anyhow.  It is best for the 5-8 yo crowd as a story, but those illustrations transcend the ages.

Every Aussie needs a copy of this book.  Even those of you who prefer not to let the jolly fat man enter your home and unlikely to have issues with this one, I suspect.  Call it history or geography or something.  Or art.  Its all of these as well as a Christmas book. It is really special.

Tea and Sugar Christmas has just been released.  You can find it in any bookstore, I suspect, or order it online from Readings here.

On finding a geology book

Can I in good conscience teach my daughter using this dull old geology book with its little, grainy black and white photos, that was published in 1929? Because I'm thinking I might. In fact, despite its age, or maybe because of it, I think this may be the perfect AO8 geology book for my daughter. Now before you click away to our friend Abe to search for a copy of your own, you need to be aware that it may not be the perfect book for you. In fact, unless you live in Australia, it probably won't be.

The most logical - and enjoyable way to study geology it to get outside, and look at what's under your feet. It's easier in the country, where the soil and rocks are easier to uncover, but even in the middle of big cities, a road cutting, the banks of an urban creek, or even a construction site will reveal much. If you go to several areas, you may even begin to see differences between them - natural formations, land usage, the rocks, cliffs or hills. All becomes tantalisingly interesting. The problem is, that it's hard to know what you're seeing. Purchasing a geological map doesn't help much either. What does Tertiary mean? Devonian? Silurian? To discover this, we really need to turn to books. Books and Things. Where have I heard that before?

One of the things that makes this old book, Open Air Studies in Australia by Frederick Chapman, perfect, is that it tells me about areas that I can go and visit and walk through and actually see and touch. It mentions Torquay, a beach 15 minutes from my mum's, the ancient dunes of the Mallee, near our home, the Dog Rocks at Batesford that we pass each weekend. Other locations are a drive away. Beaumaris, Lilydale, Sorrento. Admittedly, it would take a year long trip around Australia to cover all the places he mentions and describes, but there is enough close by to really bring alive the geology of our own region, and through it, the geology of the whole world, for while the book has been approached from an Aussie viewpoint, it is not entirely limited to this part of the earth's surface.

The other thing that makes it perfect is the era in which it was written. Some quotes, I think will show you what I mean here:

Surely the chief charm of the present stories is that while they are true they are not empty of romance, and as one reads one recalled those incomparable lines of Wordsworth:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth, and every common sight,To me did seemApparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream.(From the Foreword)

Even the most familiar objects met with day by day are often virtually unknown to us, though on closer acquaintance they may prove a source of intellectual pleasure, especially if we take the trouble to delve after some of these hidden secrets of nature.

To the earnest seeker "question will be followed by question," until he sees that

Earth's crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God.

But how comes the sand where we find it? Our answer lies on the foreshore. At each succeeding tide large quantities of shells and grit are thrown up from great depths of a fathom or two, by the great rollers which break harmlessly on the strand. The shells, along with other hard material, derived, it may be, from a rocky shore, are broken and ground upon one another, chiefly by the back wash of the waves until the shells and rock fragments become changed from shingle to smaller and more rounded fragments, and finally ground into sand, for

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.

What I hope these excerpts show you, is the literary language of the book, along with his respect for God. Now I'm not saying that Chapman was a Christian, there is no indication of that either way, but he does not denigrate those who believe, and that is incredibly difficult to find in geology books of recent times.

I've talked before of my issues with the age of our earth. Theologically, I'm young earth, but I struggle very much with young earth science. I'm afraid that I find it shoddy, and I hate bad science. Now I am confident that God is truth. Ultimately there will be no real disagreement between what God has revealed in his Word, and what is shown to be true about his creation. If there is a real conflict then the science is wrong. However, we must also be aware that while the Bible is inerrant, theologians are not. Christians made very big mistakes in their interpretation of Scripture during the time of Galileo; it is possible and likely that they also do so today. If there is disagreement between theologian and scientist, it is not always the scientist who is wrong.

Keeping that in mind, then, I am not 100% sure about the age of the earth, and at the very least I want Jemimah to feel comfortable knowing that there are very wonderful Christian men and women who think differently upon this age issue, and that's okay. For this reason, I am happy teaching geology from an old earth viewpoint, such as that contained in Open Air Studies in Australia, provided our faith is respected. That's what I see here, and I love it!!

So what am I going to do about the age of the book? Well, not much, I don't think. This will not be the only geology Jemimah will study at school. We can cover advances in science later. We can look at plate tectonics as a stand alone topic, if necessary. We will purchase an up-to-date geological map of Victoria, and we will look at a current geological timeline and make note of where the events written about are said to have occurred. It is possible that the ages are correct, after all. We will keep an ear open for current events covering geological topics. We will read the geological information boards when we visit National Parks and areas of interest. At the end of it all, I may have taught my daughter some out-of-date science, but I don't really mind that much, because I believe that when she finishes reading this book she will be more aware of the amazingness of God's creation, and if she has questions to answer and gaps to fill then she has a whole life ahead of her to fill them. My job is merely to light the spark, after all.

Unsurprisingly, the book is out of print. There are quite a few copies available at Abe if you want to join us.

 

Amy Mack's nature books

The book of Genesis places man at the head of creation, but makes it clear that he is dependent on nature for his continued existence. In spite of the technology which makes possible synthetic food, clothing and shelter, the human species is still, primarily, a hunter and gatherer of food. Plants must be identified and processed, animals tamed and brought into subjection for the welfare of society. Small wonder that the educators of the nineteenth century emphasised the need for a knowledge of natural science, and that Rousseau's Emile was to be a child of nature. Knowledge was thought to bring mastery.

H. M Saxby, A History of Australian Children's Literature p184

We Aussies have long been proud of our native land. We delight in our strangely fascinating animals and our uniquely beautiful flora, and right from the very first Australian children's book, A Mother's Offering, written in 1841 by Lady Gordon Bremer, natural history has featured largely in our literature. Initially, children's books were meant to instruct, and A Mother's Offering is pointedly educational, moralistic and judgemental, and, to be honest, fairly boring as well for the most part, but it was not long before our new settlers came to love their new land and to delight in passing their love on to others.

It is easy to see that Amy Eleanor Mack (Mrs Launcelot Harrison) loved the bush. Her writing, both for children and adults, was intended to arouse interest in nature, and is is because of that great love that her books can counted amongst the great Australian living books, even when they are used to teach us to be good...which they generally do!

Bushland Stories, Mack's first book written for children, uses fictional stories to explain the facts of natural history to encourage a love of nature and life. The wind, waves, trees, and of course the animals and birds, are all anthropomorphised. They speak and have emotions, and have much in common with the characters in Gatty's Parables of Nature, of which this volume very much reminds me. The things of nature are used to explain the happenings of natural history to her young readers, as well as to teach character traits such as contentment, kindness and satisfaction with what we have. Because Mack was interested, primarily, in conveying botanical and zoological knowledge, however, the plants and animals still behave like their real counterparts enough that we can learn a great deal from them. In The Cocktail's Party, Bluetip the Blue Wren learns with astonishment that as he has grown his plain brown coat has turned to brightest shining black trimmed with gleaming blue.

"But I don't understand," he said. "I thought I was plain brown, like you, but there I am just like father.""When you were a little boy you were plain brown," explained his mother, "for brown is the safest colour for children and mothers. It is not easily seen and so our enemies do not notice the children who are weak, or the mother when she is sitting on her nest. But now you are a strong bird, Bluetip, and able to take care of yourself, so you need not wear your dingy brown coat any longer, and have got this nice blue suit.""Oh, I am so glad," cried Bluetip. "I have always wanted to have a coat like my father's. I am so happy," and he broke into a joyful song.

Man is the enemy, but not frustratingly so, and he can be kind too. Kids are like that, aren't they? Kind one day; cruel the next. Perhaps we all are.

There are 25 stories in the original 1910 edition, although later editions seem to contain between 15 and 18. Keep an eye out for a full version. I read Bushland Stories to Jemimah as a read aloud, somewhere about AO2 or AO3, but I don't seem to have listed it in our curriculum choices, for some reason. I think it is more worthwhile than that, and would certainly recommend that you include it somewhere between AO1-AO3. You can read a story from the book online at Homeschooling Downunder, here.

Bushland Stories was the first volume in Mack's nature series for young children, followed by Waterside Stories and Birdland Stories, all published in 1910. Be careful of overkill with these stories, but they're worth looking out for if you love the first book. Scribbling Sue, illustrated by May Gibbs, was also a book of stories about how nature can teach us to be good. It's probably a bit too moralistic for my taste.

Probably the best known of Mack's books in Aussie homeschooling circles is A Bush Calendar (1909), despite the fact that it is an adult book, and was actually a compilation of articles written for the women's page of the Sydney Morning Herald. It is written as a first person monthly diary of Amy's own wanders in the bush around Sydney, and is illustrated with black and white photographs. It is just delightful - a peaceful type of book - the sort that inspires you to get out into nature to experience it all for yourself.

November 1

It was two butterflies that did the mischief to-day. I had quite made up my mind to have a nice day's sewing, and had planned two blouses to be made; but while I sat at breakfast on the verandah those blue butterflies came floating by, and the blouses were forgotten. In and out amongst the red tips of the gum saplings they flittered, living turquoise in a frame of burnished copper. A little wind, too young to be rough, flittered softly after them and set the red leaves dancing as it passed. Some sunbeams, seeing the dancing leaves, came to join in the fun, and butterflies, leaves, and sunbeams danced and sparkled together in the soft sweet breeze.

It was irresistible. I set down my coffee cup and stood up. "It's no use," I said to myself, " no one could be expected to sit still and sew to-day when all the world's a-dancing. It's a day for the bush!" So off to the bush I went.

Jemimah read this beautiful book in AO7, coinciding each monthly chapter with the correct month of the year. The book begins on August 1, but it lost little by being read January to December, and the benefits of reading the correct months were evident. Each chapter ends with a detailed list of flowers in bloom and birds to be found in and around the coastal areas of Sydney, and Jemimah found it interesting comparing these lists to happenings in our own region.

A Bush Calendar has been reprinted by the lovely Michelle from Homeschooling Downunder. Thanks, wonderful lady, for all that you do for us. It is also at Archive.

A Bush Calendar was followed quickly afterwards by Bush Days in 1911. Written in a similar style, Bush Days is a series of undated stories, quite as delightful as those in A Bush Calendar. My favourite story in this volume is about one of my favourite birds, the Silvereye. It's the story of a young lad who learns to his amazement that the 'sivie' sings as sweetly as a canary:

"I had no idea that silvereyes could sing at all," said one of the men, still gazing up into the branches.I laughed. "It's a case of the prophet in his own country.""Evidently," agreed the man. "I must listen to them in future. It's a good thing to know that we have birds that can sing.""It is," I assented, "the pity is that more people don't know it."Then we all went on our ways, leaving the small singer alone. And he, regardless of his audience, and heedless of their ignorance, still sat amongst the glossy leaves, pouring forth his song of joy and thanksgiving unto the world beautiful.

Until I read this chapter, I didn't know that Silvereyes could sing either.

Jemimah read Bush Days in AO7 as well. On the first week of each month she would read the entry from A Bush Calendar; on the other weeks she read from Bush Days. Bush Days is available from Archive.

Amy Mack also wrote another book for adults, The Wilderness, in 1922. I haven't used this with Jemimah yet, but plan to in a couple of years. I'll keep you appraised!

 

Longtime Passing

Teddy Truelove is one of my childhood friends, as real to me as the girls who lived down the street, only perhaps more so, because I could read about Teddy over and over again. She lived with her family in the remote Candlebark forests of the Blue Moutains of New South Wales in a hut that her father, Edwin, hewed from bark slabs for his wife and children, cutting the logs from the forest that surrounded them and provided their livelihood. Teddy's father has settled in Longtime with his brothers, Merlin, Sean and Vance, because doctors have told him that only the fresh mountain air will keep his beloved daughter, Teddy's elder sister, alive. It is a life of hardships, of failed orange orchards, bushfire, and the Depression, but for Teddy and her siblings, it is also a life filled with freedom, adventure, and fun. Family are always present - the uncles woo their girlfriends, the aunts helping to manage the household.

Children and older folk, too, when they planted the freshly turned earth, somehow planted themselves. So that always and forever, wherever they went, whatever season it might be, whatever the time of day, those roots would draw them back... This was Longtime as I remember it. This was the country of my childhood.

Lettie, Teddy's mother, ‘felt as though she and the children were the only inhabitants of a lost world’. Born to a life of leisure in the genteel suburbs of Sydney, she dedicates herself to supporting her husband and raising and educating her children as best she can, disappearing at night into endless re-readings of Pride and Prejudice.

Longtime Passing tells the history of the early Australian explorers and the problems they encounter 'going west', through the seemingly impenetrable barrier of the Great Dividing Range. It talks of the convict labourers, the struggles of the first settlers - and, of course, the Aborigines. Brinsmead is sometimes criticised for telling what is probably a fictional story of the ritual sacrifice of a young aboriginal woman who leads white man across the mountains, but Longtime Passing also deals sensitively with the aborigines and their cultural heritage and spiritual beliefs.

Teddy seems real, because she almost is. Longtime Passing is the only slightly fictionalised story of Brinsmead's own childhood. It is the first of three books in the Longtime trilogy, along with Longtime Dreaming, the memoir of Brinsmead's father, and the delightful Christmas at Longtime. They're out of print, but easily available through my friend Abe. We read them in AO7. You should too.

 

Ash Road

A friend asked me recently if I recommended Ivan Southall's books, and I couldn't really answer. I knew that I had loved them as a child, and I knew that Southall as an author was still very highly regarded, and I knew that his books had won lots of awards, both here and in America, but would they live up to the standard of a Living Book? I wasn't actually sure.

Last Sunday, the 12th of January 2014, I started reading aloud Ash Road, coincidentally on the very same day that the book was set - 12th January 1962. And so we have been reading about Victorian bush fires and north winds and temperatures in the 40s (or 100s) during a week that those very same conditions have been repeated in real life. Temperatures of 44°C for days on end, that same, hot, dry, unbearable north wind sapping our energy and removing the very last drops of moisture from an already dry landscape, and fires burning out of control all around our state.

And so now that we've finished the book, is it Living ?  Definitely yes.  With a capital Y.  Let me tell you about it.

Ash Road is the story of three boys who accidentally start a terrible bushfire.  Very quickly it is out of control:

The fire was getting away from them in all directions, crackling through the scrub down-wind, burning fiercely back into the wind.  Even the ground was burning; grass, roots, and fallen leaves were burning, humus was burning.  There were flames on the trees, bark was burning, foliage was flaring, flaring like a whip-crack; and the heat was savage and searing and awful to breathe.
"We can't, we can't," cried Wallace.  "What are we going to do?"
They beat at it and beat at it and beat at it.
…"What have I done? We've got to get it out!"

But they can't get it out, and the fire keeps growing, and growing, and growing.

Then they saw flames to the right, flames at tree-top height exploding like surf on rocks: waves of flame, torrents of flame, flames spraying in fragment, in thousands of pieces, in flaring leaves and twigs that rained on the road in a storm of fire.  It was upon them in seconds, or they had come upon it so swiftly that there was no turning from it: no time to turn, no chance to turn, no place to turn.

Just over the range from the fire lies Ash Road.  It is home to the Tanners, the Fairhalls, the Robertsons, the Georges, the Pinkards, and the Buckinghams.  On Ash Road are their farms, their homes, and their children.  When the fire gets bigger, all the fathers on Ash Road leave to fight the fire. All the mothers leave to help in the first aid centres.  Leaving the children at home alone…

Southall paints an incredibly realistic picture of that terrible day.  Time moves so slowly.  Everything is surreal - the sky, the heat, the smoke, the strange behaviour of the adults. Finally, the children realise that they are alone.

Southall is renowned for his ability to understand the way young people grow and change in the face of adversity.  The way he does that in this novel is extraordinary.

Ash Road begins with the climax of the story - the realisation that the boys have started an uncontrollable, terrible bushfire.  It is a rare novel that can maintain suspense of this type from beginning to end, but this book does it incredibly realistically, and incredibly well.

We read Ash Road as a Free Read in AO7, but I highly recommend it not only for the Aussie, but for anyone who wants to know what summer in Australia is all about.  You won't get a better description that this.

Ash Road was the winner of many awards including the 1966 Children's Book Council of Australia for Book of the Year, and the1966 New York Times Book Review for Children's Book of the Year.  It was also commended for the 1966 American Library Association Notable Book.

Believe it or not, this book is actually in print.

Downunder Geography

Aussie homeschoolers - and Aussie Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, in particular - are truly blessed to have Michelle Morrow and her company, Homeschooling Downunder.  The series of Australian and New Zealand literature passages compiled into graded copy work books is my favourite of her products, but where would we be without all of the wonderful out-of-print Aussie living books that she has republished - The Wonderland of Nature, A Bush Calendar, and Our Sunburnt Country to name three?

When Michelle recognised that there was no good Australian geography book for upper primary school kids, she didn't just bemoan the fact as I did, she set about writing one! Enlisting the help of other Aussie homeschooling folk, Michelle envisaged an Australian geography book styled on Charlotte Mason's own Elementary Geography.  The result, Discover Downunder, is a compilation of short chapters from a great group of contributors, each talking about of an area of Australia that they know well.  There are personalised reminiscences and fun stories mixed in with plenty of informative facts, all written for children, but not down to children.  If you know what I mean.  The result is a fabulous tool for learning about our great land downunder.

I'm going to have Jemimah read a chapter a week through next year, but probably if I had my time again, I would have had her read it more slowly through years 4-6. There are 26 chapters, each of less than a page in length.  Have a look at a sample.

The book comes with an an accompanying Downunder Geography Discover Pages eBook, and you can see pages from that here.  As a strict CM homeschooler, I won't be using that, but I will be using the wonderful map that you can purchase from Homeschooling Downunder to mark the places that we read about in the text.

Michelle sent me a copy of Discover Downunder and the Australian Traveller's Map for review.  When she did, she jokingly told me that I'd be in trouble if I didn't like it!  Well, she needn't have worried.  There are very few good Aussie geographies covering topics as diverse as water, wildflowers, agriculture, lakes, rivers and wetlands, climate and seasons as well as the States and Territories, and this is a wonderful resource for the Australian homeschool.  I like it very much indeed.

Peryan - Wildflower season

It may be still winter for another ten days, according to the traditional European four seasons per year model, but in Gariwerd, our nearest Indigenous area, it is peryan - the season of wildflowers. The wattle is in bloom, and in our own native garden, so too is the Happy Wanderer, Hardenbergia violacea, and the pretty mauve Grevillia sericea, along with its lovely unnamed cousin, below, with its fire red blooms.

Our favourite resource for Aboriginal Seasonal Calendars is Banksias and Bilbies - Seasons of Australia, written by Alan Reid, and published by the Gould League in 1995.

In Australia, Aboriginal survival depended upon their close affiliation with the sequence of seasonal events, especially the life cycles of plants and animals used as food, but also the risk of natural disasters such as fire or flood.  Aboriginal tribal calendars relate to these seasonal events.  Those in the North of our country have been in continual use; many in the south have been resurrected or rediscovered in recent years since Alan Reid introduced the calendars in his book.

Reid suggested the gathering of natural history observations within distinct regions in order to identify true seasonal patterns, and in 1994 he launched the Timelines Australia Project, which aimed to develop - or recover - seasonal calendars in each major region in Australia.  Banksias and Bilbies was published, in part, to assist with the monitoring and recording of these seasonal events.

Alan proposed a six season calendar for his region, the Middle Yarra region of Victoria.  His seasons were Autumn, Winter, Pre-Spring, True Spring, Early Summer and Late Summer.

The closest region to us, Gariwerd, uses the Brambuk calendar, which also recognises the six seasons proposed by Reid, reflecting the changes in temperature, rainfall and availability of plants and animals for food in our regional area (well, sort of our area).Seasonal weather calendars for Gariwerd as well as other regions of Australia are displayed in the Bureau of Meteorology's Indigenous Weather Knowledge website.  The site is in its early stages - further regions will be progressively added to the site, but it is worth checking to see whether your region is already featured.  The website is a good amalgamation of thousands of years of indigenous weather knowledge, complemented by the scientific and statistical approaches implemented by Alan Reid.

Each of the six Gariwerd seasons is about two months long.  The Jardwadjali and Djab Warrung people have both lived in the region, and both recognised these same six seasons.

Of course, European plants also follow our unique Australian calendar.  Petyan is especially beautiful in our garden because of the swathes of daffodil species that we have planted under the pear tree, as well as the blossom along the drive.  Later in the year, in ballambar, or early summer, the English garden comes into its own.  Sadly it is such a short season here - possibly even shorter than the two months in Gariwerd.  Kooyang, or late summer arrives all too soon with its bushfires, hot winds and drought. European flowers do not like kooyang very much.

Banksias and Bilbies is part nature diary, part week-by-week information guide. It is a wonderful book if you can find it cheaply, but is not worth the exorbitant prices currently being asked for on Abe.  Go for the website instead.

While you recover from that shock, I hope you'll enjoy some more peryan-time photos of our garden.  I'm so glad we arrived home in time to see this.

See, think, and tell

I'm having trouble trying to decide what to do this morning.  Should I work on Living Science?  Update my blog?  Read my book?  Such decisions.

After much thought I'm going to combine the first two and tell you about my new Australian nature study book.  That way, I'll assuage my guilt over not working on the former, and be able to talk to you at the same time!  Now, before you click away, the post is more about nature study than Australia, if that makes any difference.

(If you want the sound track for my life, today I'm listening to this exquisitely beautiful thing, courtesy of one of the lovely mums on the AO forum. (Have you joined?  I'd love to see you over there!))

Anyhow, the book's called Australian Nature Studies by John Albert Leach, and it was first published in 1929 in the hope that "the non-expert, the nature-lover, the teacher, the scout-master and others interested in boys and girls will find such direction and assistance as will enable them to see and understand enough of nature about them to lay the foundation of the observing habit."

It's an unassuming little book.  Mine has no cover, and plain green boards.  It has simple line drawings. It is really not that exciting to look at, but one look at the prose makes you realise that Leach was passionate about nature study. The Australian Dictionary of Biography has this to say about him:

From 1904 Leach, as the Education Department's visiting teacher of nature study, was an inspiration to other teachers. His subject was soon accepted into the school curriculum and in February 1905 he became teacher of nature study and geography at the Melbourne Continuation (High) School and, in March, lecturer in nature study and botany at the Training College. He was appointed organizing inspector of nature study in 1907 and in 1911 and 1912 published a complete scheme for the teaching of the subject in the Education Gazette and Teachers' Aid. Leach led many field excursions and, although these were planned for small groups, attendance swelled and the trips soon became regular features of school life. In October 1909 Leach also helped to found the Gould League of Bird Lovers; its membership of 25,000 in its first year was a tribute to his organizing ability. He was made a senior inspector of schools in 1920, rising to assistant chief inspector in 1924.

The bulk of the book is similar to Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study with some Australian inclusions and additional simple experiments using homemade apparatus.  All is interesting, but the really inspiring bits are in the appendices.  The first is an essay entitled Nature-Study in Education.  Here are some delicious quotes:

The child has learnt much before entering school; he is interested in, and full of curiosity concerning things about him.  Nature-study aims at continuing his natural method of learning and developing further his interest and curiosity... As nature-study is so full of interest and is not an examination subject, it affords relief from more formal work and provides relaxation and pleasure.  In this subject at least, ...children may follow their interests.

The definition of nature-study best suited to our outlook is by Professor Lloyd Morgan:- "Nature-study is a process whereby the common things and events acquire a meaning."
The one main object of education is to produce a self-educating person.  Nature-study with its vast field for interest lays the foundation of this desirable habit for the observant child.  He develops power to extend this habit to other subjects.

Our aims in nature-study then are to continue the natural method of learning and enable a child to see and understand; he should see for himself, think his own thoughts, and enjoy the natural beauties and operations about him.  Incidentally, he develops power to express his thoughts in speech, drawing and writing.  Thus is attained the purpose of nature study...that a child shall "see, think and tell" for himself.

Nature-study also has an educational value.  The fourth R - reasoning - is important.  How many men with little of the three R's have become leaders among men?  They owe their success, not to their knowledge of the three R's, but to their power of reasoning facts, forming correct judgements, and depending on these judgements.  They can see and think for themselves.  Nature-study concerned with seeing and thinking, assists in developing that reasoning power.

Nature-study...helps other subjects.  Composition, oral and written, is assisted directly.  The children, having much to tell, develop the power to express thoughts suitably.  Drawing is also assisted; new things are studied and expressed by drawing, which implies accurate observation of form and structure. Geography is helped largely; just where physical geography ends and nature-study begins is not easy to say; each helps the other.

How different the nature study...of mountain, shore and forest regions or of mining or orchard districts! Profit and pleasure await all in the study of their environment; there is freedom in this subject at least. 

A love of truth will surely result from nature-study, which helps to develop the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the understanding heart.  In nature-study, reliability is the keynote.  It helps produce the citizen the Empire needs, reliable, resourceful, experimenting, observant, mindful of the rights of others, standing firm to the right and true, and not misled by glitter or appearance.

The second appendix is called Nature-Study as a School Subject. It's filled with pearls of wisdom also, this time of a more practical bent.  I hope you're not bored yet.

The...aim in nature-study is that the child should "see what he looks at," think about what he sees, and then express his thoughts suitably. The aim is expressed simply in three words - see, think, and tell.

Dead specimens are unnecessary, and, in fact, are often nearly useless.  It is the living, working organism that is beautiful.  Nature-study develops a regard for the rights of others, and a respect for the life of both animals and plants.  A dead specimen means generally a dead lesson.

While each...develops the branch in which he is most interested, he should not confine his course to that branch.  Some love birds; others, flowers; some, rocks; others are keen on the glories of the sky - nature's picture book.  All should receive stimulus and introduction.

There are two distinct steps in any nature-study.  The child first examines the material for himself, forms his own ideas about it, and becomes accustomed to movements and structures.  A lesson during this stage is pleasant or profitable neither to teacher nor pupil... In the second stage, the child desires to tell what he has observed and to hear what others have discovered.  A lesson, now that he is ready for it, is a pleasure.

Some authorities object to "sipping," and want "systematic" work following the order of science.  That is impossible, and even if possible, is undesirable.  Few, if any, elementary school teachers know the scientific order of the several sciences drawn on, few can find the material to illustrate the scientific order, and few localities provide that material...   Nature "has a brook and plant and toads, and bugs, and the weather all together."  Though man would treat these under different sciences, yet in nature-study this is the natural grouping.  To the child, there is but one science, one nature.

Some...desire much apparatus.  There is, however, abundance of naked-eye material... The child should acquire the habit of noting unconsciously what is going on.  He hears the-singing lark while those not interested hear nothing.  He enjoys the beauty of the sky and spring flowers while walking...  If he has the nature study habit only when fully equipped with apparatus and in a special locality, then nature-study has failed.  Wayside plant and lonely road should have interest and meaning as well as the school garden, which will not be neglected in nature-study.

Lessons should always be fully illustrated; there should be a consistent appeal to the thing itself to confirm or correct each point.  Observation and study must be based on reality.

A simple test of the success of nature-study is this:  If the work is a pleasure to all concerned, it cannot be wrong; if not a pleasure, it cannot be right, though much time and trouble be taken to provide abundant material and to give good lessons.

If you've stuck with me until now, the third Appendix is the one that has relevance to Living Science, and it is the one that has me most excited, for in this Appendix Leach includes a whole eight year Course of Study for children ages 5-14!  Oh my!

 It appears that back in 1929, children took nature study in primary school, which was replaced by science in the higher grades.  Miss Mason, on the other hand carried nature study right through the secondary years as well.  What was this more advanced nature-study like?  We know that Nature-Lore in her schools included knowledge of  natural objects—wild flowers and fruits, trees, birds and insect life.  It included field work in botany, natural history, geography and geology and the keeping of a Nature-diary. It introduced students to the pursuits of field naturalists. (Is this field naturism? field nature? Dunno.  Aren't naturists people who like gong outside with no clothes on?  Blush.) Anyhow, what we don't know much about is how nature study in CM's schools evolved as the pupils aged.  What did field work in botany and the rest actually look like?  Leach's Course of Study, perhaps gives us some ideas.

The Course of Study, as I mentioned covers 8 years, but I'd like to just look at year 6 if I may, since that is Jemimah's year.  Lessons marked with an asterisk were considered most important.  Here they are in season order:

Year Six Age 11

Summer

• Seed scattering
• Water and life, Transpiration

Autumn

• Mosquitoes (two lessons) - life history, structure, distribution, blood-sucking apparatus and coagulation, malaria and yellow fever hosting, breeding and suppression
• Equinox, sunrise, sunset
• Germination
• Seed leaves and uses
• Plant feeding
• Leaf arrangement
• Leaf shape and edges
• Plant respiration

Winter

• Roots
• Stem
• Plants feel
• Solstice, place and time of sunrise, sunset
• Deposits and flood plains
• Rives and lakes
• Clouds
• Southern Cross or N & S Line
• Wattle Tree

Spring

• Asparagus
• Potato or iris
• Feathers
• District birds in orders
• Beaks and necks
• Scarlet geranium
• Nasturtium or sage
• Strawberries
• Cereals or climbing plants

As you see, it is full, varied, and advanced.  It covers botany, geology and physical geography.  It moves on from the macro study of earlier years into the micro study.  It is achievable without too much effort and without expensive equipment. I am quite excited about this course of study.  It inspires me to see nature study more as observational science, worthy in its own right to be included in the secondary curriculum.

Nothing in Charlotte Mason's philosophy is done for no reason, especially not something with the time commitment of nature study.  Leach's book inspires me to keep doing nature study well in to secondary school, and to do it well.  The rewards, as with everything else in Mason's method, will surely follow.  See, think, and tell.  It's that simple.

A shelf of Australian treasures

• Mr & Mrs Bear and Friends by May Gibbs
• Stout Fellows: Chum, Angelina Wallaby, Um-Pig and Flip by Dorothy Wall
• The Enchanted Forest by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and Gregory Outhwaite
• Budgeree Bill: An Australian Story for Little Australians by W J O'Neill
• Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
• Magic Australia by Nuri Mass
• Scott's in Gumnut Land by May Gibbs
• The Muddle-Header Wombat by Ruth Park
• The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
• Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs
• Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall
• The Gumnut Land Adventures by May Gibbs
• The Flyaway Highway by Norman Lindsay
• A Tiny Story of Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall
• The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall
• The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
• Nittybub and Nittersing by May Gibbs

It's been one of those super busy weeks where we've sort of had to condense five days of school into three, and every extra minute has been taken up with important stuff that can't be put off.  I do have a couple of posts in the planning, but they're not going to get done this week at least.

In the mean time, and because nobody leaves me nice messages if I don't post, and I'm getting sad and lonely and downright miserable, here's a shelf from our library (I love typing that!) for you to have a browse through.  Don't you love stickying at people's bookshelves?  I do, but you already know that.

Below the photo is a list of books from left to right.  You'll notice a couple of copies of Magic Pudding, and two of Blinky Bill.  That's the way it is sometimes.

It turns out that I've had a bit to say about many of these books, and in that case I've linked to the post.  Some of these are actual reviews; others are just a bit of chat.  Some have photos of the insides of the book too, and if you're anything like me, you'll love looking at the delightful illustrations.

Let me know in the comments if you'd like to see more shelves like this. Or if you'd like to hear about any of the books here.

I'll be back next week with something a bit more erudite.  Have a nice weekend!

Archie's Letter

I was prepared not to like Archie's Letter when I realised that it was abridgement of another book called The Line by the same author.  Based on that alone, I put it aside for a year, and almost didn't bother reading it this year either.  Had I not I would have missed a really special book.  Archie's Letter is a must read for all Australians.

It's the true story of Arch Flanagan and his experiences in WWII.  Archie saw action in Syria before being taken captive by the Japanese in Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies.  Under the command of a very special man, Lieutenant-Colonel "Weary" Dunlop, Archie was transported by the Imperial Japanese Army to Singapore's Changi Gaol, and from there to work on the notorious Burma Railway.  The railway is known in Australia as the Death Railway, because it is said one man died for every sleeper laid.  Life in the camps was barbarous, and many men died from cholera, exposure, starvation and horrific treatment by the Japanese. Weary looked after them all.

After completion of the railway Archie was transported to Japan in a Japanese ship. Many of the ships were intercepted, and sunk by the Americans.  Eighteen hundred Australian prisoners of war died because they were part of Japanese convoys attacked by American submarines.  I did not know that until I read this book.

Archie was working mining coal under the see when the atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  A day later the war was over.

22,000 Australians were prisoners of war of the Imperial Japanese Army during WWI. One in three died in captivity.  In 2010, less than 1000 were still alive.  Archie was one of them.  That year, for the first time, Archie was unable to attend the dawn service.  He wrote a letter to the people who did attend.

"Thanks for coming.  Thanks for remembering them. Thank you so much."  These are Arch's concluding words.

I learned much from this book.  Even after a term studying WWII history, there is much I did not know about the war in the Pacific.  It's important for us to know the stories of ordinary men in the wars.  It is important that we remember them. That's why we commemorate Anzac Day.  Not to glorify war, but in the hope that it will never, ever happen again.

We will be at our town's service tomorrow. We will remember them.

Archie's Letter is harsh reading.  War is not nice.  I reckon it's good for mature 8 year olds up.  Even adults will learn from this book.