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!

 

And then he died

Whenever my grandmother read Spotty the Bower-Bird to my mother and her siblings, she would alter the invariably tragic endings so that everybody lived happily ever after. My mother did the same for me when she read things that ended on a sad note. When she would sing me Molly Malone she would deliberately leave off the last verse, the one where sweet Molly Malone dies of a fever and becomes a ghost. One day she forgot and sang the song through, and from that time on I would sniffle away and request the last verse every time. "Sing the rest...hic...Mummy, the bit where she...sniff...dies." And so reluctantly she would sing, and I would cry.

When we started Spotty the Bower-Bird this term, I must admit that I was tempted to rewrite the endings as well. Why does everyone have to die? Why can't Spotty just fly off into the sunset?

American naturalist and author, Ernest Seton Thompson in his Note to the Reader at the beginning of his book, Wild Animals I Have Known says this:

The fact that these stories are true is the reason why all are tragic. The life of a wild animal always has a tragic end.

This is, no doubt, true, but it is sad to get to know a wild animal well only to have it die right at the end. In the later volume, Lives of the Hunted, Seton Thompson adds that “there is only one way to make an animal’s history un-tragic, and that is to stop before the last chapter.” Perhaps it would be nice if occasionally that's what these authors did. Anyway, Spotty's author, E S Sorenson didn't, and everyone dies. The End.

Apart from this, it is hard to find a better Australian junior natural history book than Sorenson's. Edward Sorenson was a member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union and of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, and his first-hand knowledge is evident in the expert descriptions of wildlife that are a feature of his books. Despite some infrequent and totally unnecessary anthropomorphism, which both Jemimah and I find rather irritating, his stories of the lives of our native Australian animals are without equal. His writing style is not as polished at Seton's in my opinion, but the styles of the two men are similar, and the personalities and unique characteristics of our fascinating fauna are brought to life in his interesting stories.

Sorensen's best known book is Spotty the Bower-Bird and Other Stories, but look out for his other books as well, especially Karaway the Cockatoo and Other Stories, the companion volume, and Friends and Foes in the Australian Bush. All would be great for natural history if you can get them at a reasonable price. We read Spotty in AO6.

On the beach

Jemimah and I spent this afternoon at St Kilda Beach observing seagull behaviour. It was a suggested project in our Australian Natural History book, Australian Backyard Naturalist, and in line with author Peter Macinnis' instructions we had ventured out with a loaf of crusty bread for feeding and a camera for recording behaviour. Of course, being good CMers we also packed Nature Notebook and some fine pens, figuring rightly that they would be easier to manage than watercolours on a beach with this gusty dry summer weather.

The object was to observe how the birds interacted when they gathered together to compete for food. Seagulls are always hungry and they have very short fuses. It was easy to see how aggressive they became when they were forced to fight for their food. Some of their squabbles were rather nasty, and very loud! They quickly demonstrated a pecking order, and a few birds were clearly dominant.

Our seagulls today were Silver Gulls, and they're found all over the continent. The older the bird, the brighter the red of the beak, and it was interesting to observe the differences in colour in our group. Several of the juveniles also displayed the pretty motley brown wing feathers that are characteristic of the younger birds. It was also obvious that they deferred to the adult birds, who were clearly dominant over them.

We had a fantastic time today feeding these birds and laughing at their antics. They were great subjects for nature study, as well.

We're using this book in Term 1 of AO6 for Natural History. So far it is fantastic, although there have been a couple of remarks that have displayed the evolutionary bias that one would expect of a book published late in 2012. Conveniently there are 12 chapters, tailor making the book for an AO term. The chapters read in a living narrative style, and additional information is included providing additional natural history information about the animals, as well as historical accounts and discoveries made by early explorers and researchers. Pictures come from the National Library of Australia and are fabulous. Each chapter contains a number of projects, and some of these fit CM's recommendations perfectly. Like this one of ours today.

Chapters include:

• Mammals
• Birds
• Reptiles and Amphibians
• Spiders
• Butterflies and Moths
• Flies and Mosquitoes
• Ants and Ant lions
• Other Stingers, Biters and Nasties
• Leaf Litter Animals
• Snails and Their Slug Relatives
• Earthworms and Leeches
• Other Insects You May Meet
• Making Your Own Equipment

Sydney-based author Peter Macinnis  received the Eve Pownall award for the companion volume to this book, Australian Backyard Explorer in 2010, and his 2006 book, Kokoda Track:101 Days, was short-listed for the NSW Premier's History Awards in 2007 and was an Eve Pownall Honour Book in the 2008 Children's Book Council of Australia Awards.  Both are excellent.

After we finished feeding the birds and doing a quick sketch of adult and juvenile birds, Jemimah collected a few shells and had a quick dip. She said the water was...er...refreshing! A stroll down the beach hand-in-hand for an ice cream made the perfect end to a lovely afternoon. I love spending time with my girl.

Our beach visit was an ideal way to keep summer alive in our back-to-school week. We had a marvellous day together and learned something while we were at it. Hurrah!

Run, rabbit, run

When I was a child growing up in Geelong, we had a fine Victorian mahogany sideboard with a history at the back of our large dining room. A huge and magnificent thing it was, topped in the centre of its ornate mirror back with a realistic fox's head, and each side bearing two life sized pineapples. I say that the sideboard had a history, because it had come from Barwon Park, a name infamous in the Geelong region as the home of Thomas Austin, the man who had introduced rabbits into Australia. At the time, the rabbits and other game he bred were much acclaimed; today that praise has turned to blame.

Because of the fox's head, we always wondered whether the Austins might also have introduced the fox. The spread of the two species throughout the land was in fact similar, but a quick search of my good friend google this afternoon failed to either prove nor disprove our theory. At any rate, the fox head atop the sideboard had rather a sad ending when one day my brother and I, playing at cricket in the dining room, (what - you mean to say that you didn't have a dining room big enough to play at cricket?) mis-hit a cricket ball straight into the sideboard, and the head tumbled to the ground. Well. Ahem. We looked much like the Pevensey kids at the beginning of the Narnia movie, and in shame I'm afraid that we behaved rather the same way. We propped that there head back onto that sideboard as if it had never gone anywhere at all, and like Elvis we left the building. It was only in the last very few years that we actually admitted our deed to Mum and Dad, and until that day they'd never even known.

But I digress (down a rabbit trail) as usual. I believe we were talking about Thomas Austin and the rabbit.

In 1831, 16 yo Thomas Austin arrived with his family in Van Diemen's Land from his home in England. Six years later, along with his brother, he crossed Bass Strait and settled as a pioneer pastoralist in the Western District of the Port Phillip District, where he was to live for the rest of his life.

Austin came from a country where fox hunting and the shooting of rabbits, deer, pheasant and grouse were the preferred leisure activities of the privileged class, and he had arrived in a country lacking anything but kangaroos. Thomas quickly set about altering this situation, and joined the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria to help introduce these species from England. In April of 1861 he wrote this to the Society:

I may add, that I have done a little myself towards introducing game birds. I brought out in the Yorkshire nine hares and thirty-four black- birds and thrushes, which I am going to turn out here ; and my man, this last season, has reared about seventy pheasants : some have bred out in their natural way ; and I have seen two coveys of partridges, one of six young ones, the other eight; and the English wild rabbit I have in thousands.

These thousands of rabbits were the progeny of 24 rabbits that Austin had released in October of 1959. From 24 to thousands in 16 months. Of course, the saying "they breed like rabbits" doesn't exist for nothing, and for the next few years, Austin and his friends enjoyed their favourite sporting activity, rabbit-hunting. Other landowners released rabbits on their properties in Victoria and NSW, where they also spread like rabbits. As they do.

In 37 short years, from 1859 to 1896 those pesky wabbits (oh, I am having fun here) had bred and spread up through Queensland, over to South Australia and even right across the continent to the colony of Western Australia.

The authorities realised that something would have to be done.

The success of the film, Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, has been responsible for many people knowing what happened in Western Australia. In 1901 they started building a muckle big fence, the Rabbit-proof Fence, stretching all the way across the country from Starvation Boat Harbour, just west of Esperance in the south, to Wallal on the 80 Mile Beach in the north west.

Seven years later the fence was completed - the longest fence in the world. Of course, even before completion, the rabbits had passed the fence and work had begun on Fences No.2 and 3. By 1908 the three fences were complete, over 3,000km of fenceline in total!



What many Aussies are not aware of is that these were not the only fences. Queensland began building its fence in 1884, spreading from Jimbour on the Darling Downs near Dalby down to Cameron Corner where New South Wales, SA and Queensland join. It also was unsuccessful, although later found life controlling dingos and today forms part of the Dingo Fence spreading all the way to the Great Australian Bight.

Back closer to the Austins in Victoria, a fence was also begun in the 1880s. Designed to keep out both rabbits and wild dogs, it was known as the Dog Netting Fence, and stretched from Tyntynder Homestead on the Murray River near Swan Hill to the South Australian border. Plans were then made by South Australia to extend this fence down the border.

Every time we travel to the dentist, or to do a bit of shopping in a local city, we pass a section of this fence, completed in 1885. We stopped to see it for the first time back in 1996. Jemimah was four years old, and I'd just discovered Charlotte Mason. It was our very first official nature study picnic, and you can see how cute we were here.



Sadly, 4 year old memories are not all retained, and six years later Jemimah couldn't remember visiting the fence at all.

So today after our dentist checkup we made a repeat visit. Coming as it did only a few weeks after reading Doris Pilkington's Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, this visit made a much greater impression. We discussed the fact that if it were all intact we could have followed the fence from Swan Hill back to the main road that takes us straight back home. We talked about the spread of rabbits, and I told the story of the sideboard. I also reminded my student of this poem, which is a relic of my schooldays, back when I played cricket in the dining room, and which I thought I'd told you before on A Peaceful Day, but can't find now if I did. Anyhow,I thought it was hillarious as a kid - probably because it is a little bit naughty. I still like it today. Here goes:

Differential calculus may seem a simple thing to us,
Yet rabbits, on the other hand, find it hard to understand,
Though they can add and multiply more rapidly than you or I
An aptitude, which in the rabbit, comes less from sex-appeal than habit!

Ah, yes. And I think, dear friends, that I'll leave this post just like that. What a lot of waffle. Perhaps I should delete the whole lot and replace it with this: Today we went to see a fence.

Goodbye.

Bushland and Seashore

I don't know why it is that we haven't heard more of this book in Aussie Homeschool circles. Subtitled An Australian Nature Adventure, Bushland and Seashore is just that - an adventure in words and pictures into the world of unspoiled Australia. It's a beauty. Written and sublimely illustrated by Aussie-born artist, Robin Hill, this is the book of a born naturalist. His paintings are accurate, and his observations of Australian wildlife are detailed and fascinating. He manages to paint stories of the most simple of Australian landscapes.
As it says in the Introduction, written by Graham Pizzey (whoever he is):

Robin Hill has immersed himself in Australia until it comes out of the pores of his painting and his writing. His method has been "to gaze so long and often that there is a penetration of fur or feathers or bark". For a naturalist, this is the essence of field observation. For a natural artist, it is the essence.

Chapters are divided into regions: Seashores; Scrub and Heathlands; Forest Country; The Open Plains; Swamp and Stream; The Arid Inland. The writing is elegant, the vocabulary expansive but not ridiculous. Written primarily for adults, it is easily understood by my AO5 daughter, and we are using it this Term One of AO5 as a substitute for the North American Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton. Her narrations of the first few chapters have been excellent.

Sadly, there is an evolutionary bias in the Introduction and the first two chapters. I have used this as an opportunity to discuss our alternative beliefs. I believe it is important for my daughter to understand both what we believe, as well as the predominant belief of today, that of old earth evolution. It has not been an issue to me, but I like to warn you before you purchase the book.

Published in 1962, Bushland and Seashore was Highly Commended as Picture Book of the Year by The Children's Book Council of Australia in 1963. (A very auspicious year, me thinks.)

Out of print, of course, Bushland and Seashore is available at a reasonable price from Abe. I recommend it.

Organ Pipes National Park

Jemimah was telling me about her artist study picture on Thursday. We're studying Von Guerard, and you can see his beautiful picture here. It's Warrenheip Hills near Ballarat, and it was painted in 1854.

During her narration Jemimah remarked that you could tell that it was a reproduction because of the tiles. I was somewhat bamboozled by her comments. What tiles? A reproduction of what? She went on to explain that you could tell that the scene was staged and was not painted back in the early days of white settlement because there were hexagonal and therefore man-made tiles on the river bank.

They weren't, of course, they were polygonal columnar basalt, the likes of which I had first oohed and ahhed at at The Giant's Causeway in Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland.

It was clear a natural history field trip was in order. (Yay!)

A trip to the UK being somewhat difficult to arrange for only a weekend at such short notice, we settled on the Organ Pipes National Park just outside of Melbourne. Although less well known than the Giant's Causeway, the columnar basalt formations at the park are no less spectacular, as the photos below demonstrate.

Tessellated Pavement

Organ Pipes

Rosette Rock

We packed a picnic lunch. As you do. Sushi, sashimi, pull-apart breads, vanilla slices, doughnuts, champagne... Too much food, but picnics always have too much food. Right?

We enjoyed the beauty of the natural park.

We spotted lizards and beetles and dainty fairy wrens and wagtails and grey fantails. We found an Eastern Blue-tongue Lizard and some curious Swamp Wallabies.

Being proponents of the Young Earth Theory of Creation we are none too happy with the explanations of how these amazing basalt structures are formed. Instead I told Jemimah the story of the Irish giant, Finn McCool, and how he built a causeway to Scotland to fight his arch enemy the Scottish giant, Fingal. Fairy tales are far more satisfying in cases like these! If you don't know this story you'll find one version here.

I'm sure we did enough school to be able to include this as a field trip. We did geology and natural history and botany and zoology and physical education as well. (Did I tell you the walk back to the car was all up hill?) But it wasn't school really. Our trip to the Organ Pipes was an opportunity for us to spend quality time together as a family. And in that the day was as perfect as a day can be.

Astonish Me

A spectacular and magical short film made by the WWF to celebrate their 50th anniversary, Astonish Me introduces some of the extraordinary species recently found around the world.

The WWF website says that the number of discovered species is about 1.75 million. They also state that there could be 5 million, 10 million or maybe even more, new species out there to be discovered. Isn't that just mind-blowing?

You can learn more about the new species introduced in the film here.

How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

Psalm 104:24-30 NIV

What is a Red Shift?

Well - it's amazing what I'm learning in Grade Three!! This morning I thought a Red Shift was a terrific fantasy novel by Alan Garner.

Now I know better. So does Jemimah, and she's only eight.

Gotta love Ambleside Online.

Some great Aussie books

My goodness, I think I absolutely totally and completely NEED all three of these books.

Don't you?

Thorny Devil!

This prickly looking fella is a Moloch horridus. Have any of you met one in the wild? They have lots of names - most of them less than complimentary, although really rather appropriately descriptive: Moloch, Horny Devil, Thorny Lizard, Thorny Dragon, Horned Dragon. Their scientific name was derived from the Moloch in Milton's poem - not very pleasant character really, was he, as you'll read here:

First MOLOCH, horrid King besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,
Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud
Their childrens cries unheard, that past through fire
To his grim Idol. Him the AMMONITE
Worshipt in RABBA and her watry Plain,
In ARGOB and in BASAN, to the stream
Of utmost ARNON. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of SOLOMON he led by fraud to build
His Temple right against the Temple of God
On that opprobrious Hill, and made his Grove
The pleasant Vally of HINNOM, TOPHET thence
And black GEHENNA call'd, the Type of Hell.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

The poor old dragon's not really terrifying at all in reality - belying his fearsome appearance, this fellow feeds entirely on ants! Not any ants either - they need to be little blank ants of only two types, and one of these is only found on bush soil that has not been disturbed.


I know this because we've just finished to most absolutely wonderfully delightful little book. Called Little Dragons of the Never Never by Ella McFadyen, author of the popular Pegmen books, the book is the account of the daily lives of two little dragons sent to the author from the outback. Wendy, the girl dragon, 'was such a little creature to be so wise and to work so hard, that you would love her and wonder at her; but then she had to look after Marco, who was fascinating, but gay and thoughtless.'

The way Wendy's little life began was this. Her mother made a corroboree with very good magic, to make the rains come and the ants run and everything happen in its season, just as the black men do. But there was more in it than that. She had to make sure that out of her eggs there would hatch a daughter dragon who would be a wise as herself in all the laws of her tribe, which have come down to the dragons from the Long-ago. Boy dragons cannot learn these things, because though they are very brave and dashing and good at many things, they are best of all at forgetting. There is no room inside their little three-cornered heads for more than one idea at a time.

You should have heard the roars of laughter issuing from our car as I read that passage to my family on our way home from Church one Sunday. "Humph," muttered husband, he who is good at many things but best of all at forgetting, "I suppose that will need to go on the blog, won't it?" And he was right, because here it is.

I include this excerpt to give you a look at a number of components of the book aside from that gorgeous character study of men and women: the delightfully whimsical and gentle writing style; the subtle humour; the way the creatures each display their personality; but also to display the intertwining of fact and fiction. The book is written as an account of the day-to-day activities of the delightful little dragons, but much of their behaviour is interpreted as if through an Aboriginal myth. Their story has an imagined Dreamtime component invented and assumed. Having studied much Aboriginal legend and fable during recent years, this feature of the story added, rather than detracted, from the book for us, but I know it will deter some of you from wanting to read this book to your kids, and so do be aware.

McFadyen does not anthropomorphise Wendy and Marco. They behave and look like animals. They don't speak either. Instead, she interprets the dragons' hand movements for us, as if they were using sign language to communicate both with each other and with humans. Their thoughts are interpreted through their actions. The result, although entirely imagined, is an entirely credible dialogue that we can understand.

As a result, we learn a huge amount about horned dragons. Ideally designed for their harsh dessert home by our great creator, the scales on the dragons' belly and legs collect morning dew and water from damp sand, which travels by capillary action up to their mouths. The water must be warmed and presented in the right colour bowl for the dragons to bathe in. It must be rain water. The dragons even awake from their winter hibernation to bathe if they hear rain. All this we learn.

Then one day Wendy met Marco Polo. These were not their Never Never names, for in those days on Arltunga Downs they had bush names chosen by their tribe. Wendy wore her rock-brown dress with the diamond-shaped colour-patches down the back, sometimes green like lichen on a stone and sometimes dusty purple like ironstone gravel. Marco was got up fir to kill in a fine new suit of red and yellow, patterned like a harlequin's. he was careering happily about with his tail curled up over his back. as soon as he saw Wendy he simply adored her and began to tell her about his wonderful travels, the cave he had just found (he was always finding caves, as it turned out, and they were nearly always the same cave over again) and the terrific journey he was about to begin.

Wendy listened to it all and she thought: "No doubt he is very brave, certainly he is very beautiful, and if he says so I suppose he must be clever. But he has no memory, of course, and he hasn't a scrap of commonsense, so he will need me all his life to look after him."

Before he had finished showing his new playmate half the wonders he had discovered he said to her: "Promise me that you will never leave me."

And Wendy answered: "Wherever you go I shall always go with you."

"Now I am sure of that I can get on with my work of being a great explorer," he said. "Perhaps you will do something great too."

But nobody, neither little Marco not little Wendy, not any of their tribe - not even the man with the box under his arm, who was searching among sand and stones - know that little Wendy would one day tell the story of her tribe to someone in far-away Sydney, so that it could be written down for all who read to learn to love the dragon people.

In that aim she succeeded for us. You cannot help falling in love with the delightful little lizards described so beautifully in Little Dragons of the Never Never. We adored this book. Can you tell?

We read it as our Natural History text in AO3. A few copies are available from Abe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Regardless, you will learn heaps about horned dragons, and read a delightful story as you do so.

A list for Teena

Teena asked me this question recently:

What are some other good Aussie living bird/nature books? So I can keep my eyes open for them. I already have Wonderland of Nature.

And this Teena, is a quick list from the shelves of my library. The list is not complete. Nor is it in order. Nor have I read them all as yet! If you're patient I'll review them all eventually.

1. Spotty the Bower Bird and Other Stories: Life Histories of Australian Birds and Animals by Edward S. Sorenson
2. Kooborr the Koala by C Barrett and Isobel Ann Shead
3. Wilderness Orphan by Dorothy Cottrell
4. The Story of Shy the Platypus and others in the Australian Nature Tales series by Leslie Rees
5. Larry the Story of an Australian Seagull by Ina Watson (and others by her!)
6. Little Dragons of the Never Never by Ella McFadyen
7. Honey Mouse and Other Stories by Anita Hewett
8. The Crystal Bowl: Australian Nature Stories by J. J. Hall
9. Animals of Australia in Colour by Lyla Stevens
10. Man-Shy by Frank Dalby Davison
11. Boomer: The Life of a Kangaroo by Dennis Clark
12. Old Bob's Birds and others in the series by Charles K Thompson
13. The Silver Brumby and others in the series by Elyne Mitchell
14. Storm Boy and others by Colin Thiele
15. Bushland Stories by Amy Mack
16. Australian Wildflower Magic by Nuri Mass
17. Binty the Bandicoot by Eve Pownall

There is also a great book on Aussie birds that is still in print - shock horror!!

It is called Famous Australian Birds by Gisela Kaplan. It covers the lives of eight of Australia's best known birds: kookaburra, magpie, sulphur-crested cockatoo, lyrebird, emu, eastern rosella, tawny frogmouth and wedge-tailed eagles. All of them are fascinating. Kaplan is a recognised authority on Australian birds, and author of a number of scolarly works for adult readers.

Did you know ...

• That most sulphur-crested cockatoos are left-footed?
• Magpies can mimic other birds, as well as humans, dogs and horses?
• Emus use their toes as weapons?
• Magpies can learn to talk?
• Tawny Frogmouths can regrow their tongues?
• Cockies can live for 100 years?

Ah, how clever will you be when you read this book!

Gecko

Meet Gecko, the lizard who lost his tail. He is the star of one of the few books that Leslie Rees wrote for young children of Jemimah's age, and it is just delightful. It's a book that you'll read again and again.

Youngsters of 4 or 5 will enjoy the entertaining story of how Gecko outwits crafty Jack Kookaburra, but it is older children who will really learn about the endearing gecko from this book. The gecko of our story is not identified exactly, and as Elizabeth Pope from The Australian Museum says in the Foreword, this allows children not only in Australia but also in many other parts of the world to meet and know the story's hero in person, for geckos occur outside as well as all over this large continent of ours.

Leslie Rees is that rare author, able to prevent his excursions into the realms of fantasy from interfering with the true facts. Children will learn about the behaviour of a gecko from this book, but they will have fun doing so. Rees is able to convey a lot of information in a short story too. Plus your kids will remember what they've learned. To me this defines it as a true Living Book.


Leslie Rees had an extremely successful collaboration with the illustrator Walter Cunningham. The illustrations of this book - as with all by this accomplished artist - are accurate in their detail whilst still maintaining their appeal for young children.

This next illustration says it all for me. In it you see Jack Kookaburra failing in his attempts to imitate Gecko's party trick of climbing up the walls and on to the ceiling:

"Well, if he can do it, I can too."

"Why not try?" said Gecko.

"Yes, try," giggled some of the other animals.

Jack Kookaburra did try. He fluttered his grey-brown wings and managed to stagger a few steps up the wall. He fluttered harder and nearly reached the ceiling. Then worn out, he fell back right in the middle of a brown puddle on the floor.

Sam Wallaby hopped over to pick him up. He wasn't hurt and everybody laughed and laughed. Jack didn't like that.

The book was written in 1944. Sometime around 1970 it appears that Walter Cunningham's illustrations went out of fashion, and the book was reprinted with new pictures by Tony Oliver. Here's the 70s style Gecko:

...and here's Jack in the scene described above:


This early book of Rees' is probably not his best. His titles for older children have been reprinted far more often than Gecko and convey considerably more information within their stories. Gecko on the other hand is a far more enjoyable read. You feel less like you are reading a text book and more like you are reading a fun story. A fun story with beautiful pictures and lots of true information.

When we read Gecko, Jemimah thinks she's getting a story and I think she's reading her Natural History text. Yes, we're both happy with this one.

Yeah, I know. It's out of print. Aren't they all? Abe has a few. Look for one illustrated by your choice of the two illustrators above. Personally, I'd go for Walter.