One in a thousand

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

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

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

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

So where does this leave Barney?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What should she read next?

I was first introduced to Lexile.com by Lizzie at A Dusty Frame. I'm linking the blog post here because I found alot of useful stuff - not just the Lexile info in this post, and I'm sure you will too. Have you read Lizzie's inspirational blog? I thoroughly recommend all of it!

Anyhow, back to Lexiles. Lexiles are a simple way to estimate the level of difficulty of books for your kids to read independently. I don't know about you, but I'm always on a search for the perfect book for Jemimah to read next - not too easy; not too hard, but just right...bit like the porridge, really. From the Lexile site, here's what they're all about:

The Lexile Framework® for Reading is a scientific approach to measuring readers and reading materials. A key component of the Lexile Framework is a number called the Lexile measure. A Lexile measure indicates both the difficulty of a text, such as a book or magazine article, and a student’s reading ability. Knowing the Lexile text measure of a book and the Lexile reader measure of a student helps to predict how the book matches the student’s reading ability—whether the book is too easy, too difficult or just right.

Both a Lexile reader measure and a Lexile text measure are denoted as a simple number followed by an “L” (e.g., 850L), and are placed on the Lexile scale. The Lexile scale ranges from below 200L for beginning readers and beginning-reading text to above 1700L for advanced readers and text.

The Lexile Framework, which comprises both the Lexile measure and Lexile scale, is not an instructional program any more than a thermometer is a medical treatment. But just as a thermometer is useful in managing medical care, the Lexile Framework is useful in managing your child’s reading development.

The difficulty of a text is determined by the difficulty of the vocabulary - a book's semantic difficulty -as well as the complexity of the sentences contained therein - the syntactic complexity. Sometimes the Lexile measure is a surprise. Thornton Burgess' Old Mother West Wind is 1020L; The Little Engine That Could by Piper Watty is 680L. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, made popular by the film, is about the same at 670L. What this says to me is that a book that is thought of as a kindergarten book by a CM mum is not necessarily what is thought of as a kinder book by a child raised on a diet of Rainbow Magic Fairies or similar series book twaddle.

As homeschool mums, we don't have access to the online computer programme that determines our children's Lexile levels - that's what subscriber schools get for their money. That's not too great a problem though. There are a couple of ways to determine your child's reading level. The first is to look up a couple of books that your child can read well and determine their reading level from those. The second is to use the Ruth Beechick method where you count off 100 words, not counting rhyme or verse and chapter headings. If the child can read every word it is a book he or she can read independently; if she misses 3-5 words it is his correct instructional reading level; if she misses more than 5 then the book is likely to be too hard and it will only frustrate her to continue. We are looking for books that challenge our kids, but not ones that frustrate them so much that they go off in a paddy or just give up on reading all together.

Once you have your child's approximate Lexile level, you simply choose books that fall in his or her Lexile range. A reader’s recommended Lexile range is 50L above and 100L below her Lexile measure. That makes a book difficult enough to learn from as well as be enjoyable and not so hard that she will be unable to read it successfully.

Unfortunately, the Lexile level of a book will not give you an indication of its twaddle level. Many - I'd venture to say most - of the books on Lexile.com are not on my list of Living books. On the other hand, many living books are - particularly those of American origin.

Here is a list of the Lexile measures for the books I currently have on Jemimah's free read shelf. Some of these are free reads for AO2, her current year. A couple of them are on later AO years - these I've marked with a single asterisk. Aussie titles are marked with two asterisks. It is not a full list of anything in particular. Some of the easier titles are not even really very good literature. They do give you some idea, though, of the Lexile levels of many AO and CM recommended living books, and hopefully some of you might find it useful.

The books are listed in order of Lexile level. The books at the end are not in the Lexile database, and I have simply 'guesstimated' the level of these books. They are therefore very likely to be wrong, but they do give some idea of when to offer these books to your children.

Reading List Ages 6-8


Jemimah practices reading every day from a book that is at her instructional reading level. Often the book stretches her a little and I can't imagine her reading from it if I didn't require her to do so. That doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy reading. At the moment she is reading The BFG by Roald Dahl. This is her favourite film of all time, and she chose to read this book even though it is 710L and slightly higher than anything else she has read to far. That's okay. Reading during school time should challenge, allowing her to improve in both her reading and comprehension little by little. Out of school and at weekends she is more likely to read a book slightly lower than her instructional level.

There is a video summary of the Lexile system for visual learners here.

You can find books based on Lexile level and interest at the Find a Book site.

In Australia the Lexile system is available through Scholastic. You can get the Lexile level of a number of their titles here. Unfortunately their whole list is available only to registered schools, but you can access lists for years 2005-2009 by searching their site a little.

Earth Hour 2009

We'll be switching off our lights for an hour at 8:30 pm tomorrow night. Will you join us?

Inside all of us is adventure

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

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

A Song of Autumn

Do the first signs of Autumn always signal a leaf rubbing day in your home too?

A page from Jemimah's Nature Notebook. She has a few like this most years!

A Song of Autumn

Where shall we go for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year,
When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad,
When the boughs are yellow and sere?
Where are the old ones that once we had,
And when are the new ones near?
What shall we do for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year?’

‘Child! can I tell where the garlands go?
Can I say where the lost leaves veer
On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow,
When they drift through the dead-wood drear?
Girl! when the garlands of next year glow,
You may gather again, my dear—
But I go where the last year’s lost leaves go
At the falling of the year.’

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 - 1870)

Engrossed with living words

When she read my Twitter tweet (is that how you put it?) for this past weekend, my friend Sarah quipped on my Facebook (see how remarkably IT literate I am for an old chook?):

"So I can just imagine you browsing around the city shops and then coming across a beautiful vintage book shop...you step in like you stepped out of time and get totally engrossed with living words!!!"

She's right, of course, Sarah knows me pretty well...

I was actually quite restrained, though, and arrived home with only two new purchases for our bookshelves. It would be difficult to find a more disparate pair of books than these, though. I'll describe them to you.

I found the first in one of my favourite secondhand book shops, Grub Street Bookstore, in Brunswick Street Fitzroy, one of my favourite streets. (While you're looking at the streetscape on the linked site, see if you can find two of my other faves: Basilisk Bookshop and The Brunswick Street Bookstore.) You'll also notice that Grub Street Bookshop is next to Trampoline...yum. We went there too.

Snap back to present...anyway, my first new book...

It is a beautiful 1928 edition of Christina Rossetti's Poetical Works, a collection of her poems "professedly or proximately complete", collected and edited by Christina's brother, William Michael, ten years after her death.

It contains the whole of Sing-Song, her children's nursery rhyme book published in 1872 as well as a number of other poems written for children. It also contains her first published poem, Goblin Market, a complex poem that is interpreted by scholars to be variously an allegory about temptation and salvation; a commentary on Victorian gender roles and feminism or a work about erotic desire and redemption. W. M. Rossetti maintains that his sister wrote this poem for children and did not mean anything profound by it at all, although he goes on to say this:

Still, the incidents are such as to be at any rate suggestive, and different minds may be likely to read different messages into them. I find at times that people do not see the central point of the story, such as the authoress intended it: and she has expressed it too, but perhaps not with due emphasis. The foundation of the narrative is this: That the goblins tempts women to eat their delicious but uncanny fruits; that a first taste produces as rabid craving for a second taste; but that the second taste is never accorded, and in default of it, the woman pines away and dies. Then comes the central point: Laura having tasted the fruits once, and being at death's door through inability to get a second taste, her sister Lizzie determines to save her at all hazards; so she goes to the goblins, refuses to eat their fruits, and beguiles them into forcing the fruits upon her with so much insistency that her face is all smeared and steeped with the juices; she gets Laura to kiss and suck these juices off her face, and Laura having thus obtained the otherwise impossible second taste, rapidly recovers.

You can call me naïve, but I think that I can read that to my young daughter as a mere fairytale with a moral, with no fear of corrupting her tender mind. I'm going to try anyway, as part of our AO poetry later in the year, when Christina Rossetti's poetry is listed in AO2 Term 3.

Here's the beginning - wadda ya think?:

Goblin Market

Christina Rossetti

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots,strawberries;-
All ripe together
In summer weather,-
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.'

Christina Rossetti converted to Anglo-Catholicism, along with her mother and sister, when she was in her teens. My new book contains many of her devotional poems. Although I question some of her theology, much of this poetry is quite beautiful.

Here's a short one for Lent:

Lent

Christina Rossetti

It is good to be last not first,
Pending the present distress;
It is good to hunger and thirst,
So it be for righteousness.
It is good to spend and be spent,
It is good to watch and to pray:
Life and Death make a goodly Lent
So it leads us to Easter Day.

So, from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's book two...

I bought this one new from one of Melbourne's most wonderful independent bookshops, Hill of Content (gotta love the name, as well as the sentiment behind it... I wonder if my love of books will ever be content?) It's on Bourke Street Hill in the City.



The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse is a book of my childhood. I wonder what happened to the copy I had then - it certainly wasn't as pristine as the copy I bought on Saturday...perhaps it was consigned to the rubbish bin.

Anyhow, my brother and sister and I didn't just read this book as kids - we dreamed it - we lived it. We imagined up all sorts of adventures and acted them out. We didn't have helium balloons - ours were the type that responded to gravity, but to us this idea of a balloon floating high in the air was almost magical. Even today, red balloons are the best.

I think this book qualifies as a living book, although rereading it as an adult, I'm not sure why and how it captures so completely a child's imagination. The book is really the book of the film, Le Ballon Rouge, written and directed by Lamorisse in 1957 and staring his 5-year-old son Pascal as the young boy. The words are no longer inspiring to me as an adult, but somehow, they continue to entrance the younger generation, and Jemimah is as enamoured of the book now as I was then. For her, the best bit is all of the balloons coming at the end and whisking Pascal off on his journey around the world.

(Which, of course makes me think she'll love the new Pixar offering, Up):



There's something about the things we remember from childhood that make things special, that certain nostalgia thing. I hope you love The Red Balloon as much as I did...and I do...and Jemimah does...and maybe so will her children...

I wonder if she'll remember Up the same way?

A Very Charming Gentleman

A very charming gentleman, as old as old could be,
Stared a while, and glared a while, and then he said to me:
"Read your books, and heed your books, and put your books away,
For you will surely need your books upon a later day."
And then he wheezed and then he sneezed, and gave me such a look.
And he said, "Mark - ME - boy! Be careful of your book."

A very charming gentleman, indeed, he seemed to be.
He heaved a sigh and wiped his eye, and then he said to me:
"Take your books and make your books companions--never toys;
For they who so forsake their books grow into gawky boys.
"I don't know who he was. Do you? he snuffled at the end;
And he said, "Mark - ME - boy! Your book should be your friend."

This very charming gentleman, extremely old and gruff,
He slowly shook his head and took a great big pinch of snuff,
Then he spluttered and he muttered and he loudly shouted "Fie!
To tear your books is wicked sir! and likewise all my eye!"
I don't know what he meant by that. He had such piercing eyes.
And, he said, "Mark - ME - boy! Books will make you wise."

This very charming gentleman said, "Hum," and "Hoity, Toit!
A book is not a building block, a cushion or a quoit.
Soil your books and spoil your books? Is that the thing to do?
Gammon, sir! and Spinach, sir! And Fiddle-faddle, too!"
He blinked so quick, and thumped his stick, then gave me such a stare.
And he said, "Mark - ME - boy! BOOKS - NEED - CARE!"

C J Dennis A Book for Kids

It's finally here!

The Black Dog Books edition of C J Dennis's Australian classic poetry book, A Book for Kids is finally on bookshop shelves.

The book is also online at Project Gutenberg.

Read my previous post to see why I think you should be rushing in to get your copy...your kids simply can't go through life without knowing ‘The Triantiwontigongolope’...

Charlotte and Geography

In 188o, when she was 38, Charlotte Mason published her first book: The Forty Shires: Their History, Scenery, Arts and Legends. It was a geography book about the Shires of England, written for school children, and 'designed for pleasant holiday reading'. It was tremendously popular - although whether by children reading the book by choice during their vacation or by their teachers encouraging them to do so, is not determined. Either way, a series of five geography books followed.

Book I for Standard II: Elementary Geography
Book II for Standard III: The British Empire and The Great Divisions of the Globe
Book III for Standard IV: The Counties of England
Book IV for Standard V: The Countries of Europe, their Scenery and Peoples
Book V: The Old and the New World: Asia, Africa, America and Australia

Now, thanks to the fantasmagorically amazing Judy Elliot, homeschooling grandmother extraordinaire, you can find these books and more all together online in her Yahoo Group: CM Books. Hooley Dooley that woman has done a heap for homeschool mums...

Back to the story...

In 1885, Miss Mason offered to give a series of lectures on education in order to raise money for a new parish room for her church, St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Manningham. By this time she was 43 years old. A year later these appeared in print as Home Education - Training and Educating Children under Nine. The rest, as they say, is history.

It appears that Miss Mason's opinions on geography changed a good deal between the publication of her first series of books and her treatise on the philosophy of education. By the time A Philosophy of Education was written, she had this to say:

Perhaps no knowledge is more delightful than such an intimacy with the earth's surface, region by region, as should enable the map of any region to unfold a panorama of delight, disclosing not only mountains, rivers, frontiers, the great features we know as 'Geography,' but associations, occupations, some parts of the past and much of the present, of every part of this beautiful earth. Great attention is paid to map work; that is, before reading a lesson children have found the places mentioned in that lesson on a map and know where they are, relatively to other places, to given parallels, meridians. Then, bearing in mind that children do not generalise but must learn by particulars, they read and picture to themselves the Yorkshire Dales, the Sussex Downs, the mysteries of a coal-mine; they see 'pigs' of iron flowing forth from the furnace, the slow accretions which have made up the chalk, the stirring life of the great towns and the occupations of the villages. Form II (A and B) are engaged with the counties of England, county by county, for so diverse are the counties in aspect, history and occupations, that only so can children acquire such a knowledge of England as will prove a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast. For instance, while I write, the children in IIA are studying the counties which contain the Thames basin and "Write verses on 'The Thames'" is part of their term's work. Our Sea Power, by H W Household, is of extraordinary value in linking England with the world by means of a spirited account of the glorious history of our navy, while the late Sir George Parkin, than whom there is no better qualified authority, carries children round the Empire. They are thrown on their own resources or those of their teachers for what may be called current Geography. For instance, "Learn what you can about The Political Map of Europe after the Great War."

Charlotte Mason A Philosophy of Education pp 224-5

Incidently, she is still using her own geography books at this time, but not in isolation - they are merely one part of what is effectively a literature based study of geography, where the geography is an incidental finding in the life and times of the individual or place being studied at the time.

Notice too, that Miss Mason taught the younger children about their own country first and foremost, in order to provide "a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast."

So what are we to do as homeschool mums today?

Do we wish every child in a class to say, - or, if he does not say, to feel, - "I was enlarged wonderfully" by a Geography lesson? Let him see the place with the eyes of those who have seen or conceived it; your barographs, thermographs, contour lines, relief models, sections, profiles and the like, will not do it. A map of the world must be a panorama to a child of pictures so entrancing that he would rather ponder them than go out to play; and nothing is more easy than to give him this joie de vivre. Let him see the world as we ourselves choose to see it when we travel; its cities and peoples, its mountains and rivers, and he will go away from his lesson with the piece of the world he has read about, be it county or country, sea or shore, as that of "a new room prepared for him, so much will he be magnified and delighted in it."

Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education p41-2

So...Do we need to take our children for extended jaunts around the world? It would be nice... Jemimah's opinions on Muslims in the Middle East will always be coloured by her experiences in Yemen as a 5 year old; her study of French will always be influenced by the fact that her Daddy's best friend lives in Paris and her knowledge that her friends Thomas and Naomie in Cognac don't speak English. She can tell you about geiko and maiko in Kyoto - and the differences between them, and instinctively knows the etiquette required for sleeping in a high class ryokan. So far, so good. The problem is, that Jemimah's parents can't afford to teach her world geography by taking her to every continent, country and region, no matter how nice that would be.

The next best thing, Miss Mason says is to let him follow the adventurers of some other traveller:

But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps. The 'way' of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as you read, Hartwig's Tropical World, the same author's Polar World, Livingstone's missionary travels, Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan - in fact, any interesting, well-written book of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards the child's education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.

Charlotte Mason Home Education p275

Now that is possible. Clearly we need to teach them by reading well written travel books to them, beginning firstly with books about their own country and region.

Which brings we Aussies to the next problem - which well written geography books about our country fit the lofty criteria set down above - and which of them are the right level for primary aged kids?

Trim by Matthew Flinders is one. We read it in AO2.

Old Man River by Leila Pirani is a book about the Murray River. AO2

To Ride a Fine Horse by Mary Durack is a terrific book about the settling of huge tracts of then unknown country in the 1800's and is great for older kids than Jemimah (we did read it as a read-aloud - it was much enjoyed by us all). AO4

There are a number of books about our explorers that cover both history and geography in the way Miss Mason suggests, including Exploring Australia AO3 or 4 and They Live in Australia AO2, both by Eve Pownall.

A recent book that is actually in print (!) is Alison Lester's wonderful Are We There Yet? , a travel journal told by 8 year old Grace. AO0

Magic Australia by Nuri Mass is the book we're reading currently in AO2. I'm going to tell you about this book and then press 'publish post', because I've just thought about Ion Idriess, and I realise that this list will shortly take on a life of its own if I don't put a stop to it about now...

Nuri Mass is best known for her highly acclaimed natural history book, The Wonderland of Nature, and other nature titles. Magic Australia is a magical story of Australian geography seen through the eyes of a young lad called Del as he travels around Australia with his mate, Bushbo - the eastern bushlands boy. Bushbo's not really a boy though - he's the spirit of the bush along the eastern coast. Hand in hand the two boys travel right around our great land, through the Palace of the Nullarbor, over the reef, and into the coolness of the Macdonnell Ranges. They're caught in willie-willies, duststorms and in the mangrove swamps. They travel through underground caves, and under the sea, and all the time the spirit world is all around them. It's a fascinating story.

Caveat Emptor:

This is a book to read aloud with judicious editing as you go. Nuri Mass is an evolutionist, and you may chose, as I did, to alter the age of the land from millions to thousands of years old, as well as changing a few other sections to show the creationist view we believe to be true. In addition, Magic Australia was published in 1943, and the age of the book shows in the inappropriate words used to describe Australia's Aboriginal people, as well as the small red and black Dessert Pea character.

Warnings aside, this is a fantastic living geography book about our great country. I recommend it.

Apple sauce

"Say, Betsy, I think that apple sauce is ready to be sweetened. You do it, will you? I've got my hands in the biscuit dough. The sugar's in the left-hand drawer in the kitchen cabinet."

"Oh, my! " cried Betsy, dismayed. "I don't know how to cook!"

Aunt Abigail laughed and put back a strand of curly white hair with the back of her floury hand. "You know how to stir sugar into your cup of cocoa, don't you?"

"But how much shall I put in?" asked Elizabeth Ann, clamoring for exact instruction so she wouldn't need to do any thinking for herself.

"Oh, till it tastes right," said Aunt Abigail, carelessly. "Fix it to suit yourself, and I guess the rest of us will like it. Take that big spoon to stir it with."

Elizabeth Ann took off the lid and began stirring in sugar, a teaspoonful at a time, but she soon saw that made no impression. She poured in a cupful, stirred it vigorously, and tasted it. Better, but not quite enough. She put in a tablespoonful more and tasted it, staring off into space under bended brows as she concentrated her attention on the taste. It was quite a responsibility to prepare the apple sauce for a family. It was ever so good, too. But maybe a little more sugar. She put in a teaspoonful and decided it was just exactly right!

"Done?" asked Aunt Abigail. "Take it off, then, and pour it out in that big yellow bowl, and put it on the table in front of your place. You've made it; you ought to serve it."

"It isn't done, is it?" asked Betsy. "That isn't all you do to make apple sauce !"
"What else could you do?" asked Aunt Abigail.

"Well . . . !" said Elizabeth Ann, very much surprised. "I didn't know it was so easy to
cook!"

"Easiest thing in the world," said Aunt Abigail gravely, with the merry wrinkles around her merry old eyes all creased up with silent fun.

Betsy by Dorothy Canfield

Does everybody who reads Betsy make apple sauce?
Does everybody who reads The Boxcar Children cook stew?

I'm afraid we answer 'yes' to both questions. What does that mean? Apart from the fact that we read both of these books before lunch, I mean.

Anyhow, as I ponder the meaning of this profound thought, here's our recipe:

Jemimah's Apple Sauce

Get some apples - half a dozen or so.
Wash 'em and cut'em into quarters.
Cook with enough water to stop them sticking to the saucepan.
When they're soft, push them through a food mill or sieve.
Add lemon juice and sugar to taste, along with a teaspoon of butter.
Pour them into a bowl - preferably yellow.

Delicious with roast pork, but pretty good with icecream too!

More shenanigans...

(too funny!!)

St Patrick's Day

Christ, protect me today against an untimely death that I may receive abundant reward. Christ with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ within me. Christ with the soldier. Christ with the traveler. Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me. Christ in every eye that sees me. Christ in every ear that hears me. Praise to the Lord of my salvation! Salvation in Christ the Lord.

St. Patrick

A glimpse into our family's St Patrick's Day festivities:

Drinking:

Green champagne and green soft drink

Eating:

Home-made pesto dip with water biscuits


Irish stew with warm soda bread
Mint chip icecream and green jelly (sorry, forgot the photo - too busy eating!)

Green chocolates

Irish coffee

Listening:

Celtic City Sons

mp3.com.au/CelticCitySons

Catrin Finch

Dancing:

The Irish Jig (not!)

Reading:

How Cúchulainn got his name
Valley of the Wolves
Patrick - Missionary to the Irish

Wearing:

Funny green hats

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig! - Slainte!

Il gioco delle favole

I was going to tell you all that this was a 'must have' resource for AO1 and Aesop's fables, however, having googled the price in preparation for writing this post, I now know that I was wrong. This is not a 'must have'; it is a luxury.

It is a pretty good luxury, though, so I'm going to tell you about it all the same. You can make up your own minds then about whether you go without bread and milk - or worse, chocolate and coffee - for a week so that you can afford the current exorbitant AUD$52.00 asking price. Mind you, the price tag is still on the back of mine, so I know that I didn't pay anywhere near that price. Perhaps you'll be as lucky...

The Fable Game was created by Italian designer Enzo Mari in 1965. Mari creates objects, furniture and textiles destined for industrial production. He also creates books.The Fable Game isn't a book, though. It's not a game either. It's a...well, it's an...um..it just is. That's all. It's a set of cards about 30cm wide and 15 cm high. On the card are the characters from the fables: the fox; the hare...and tortoise; the ass (sorry, donkey)...and the lion; the wolf and the lamb.

The cards interlock to tell the stories - like this:

and this:

I'm supposing that by now you're realising the potential for this...um...game in your AO1 child's narration of Aesop, aren't you? You'd be right if you think it'd be great. It is fantastic! The cards interlock in endless ways, making for an endless variety of stories, both the ones written by Aesop, and the new ones 'written' by the child. With this game in their hands, a child's imagination literally gallops away with them. It's great to witness.

Jemimah and I loved this game in AO1. I'd hesitate to say you can't live without it, after all it would take something pretty special to make me give up either coffee or chocolate, let alone both. The Fable Game would come pretty close, though.

P.S. I didn't take the pictures. I got them from one of my favourite blogs: Book By Its Cover.

I saw nothing

I have only recently come to know Australian author Gary Crew, though given how prolific he has been, I wonder how this could be so. Perhaps it is because he writes mainly for kids older than Jemimah? Anyhow, my trip to the big smoke to visit the dentist last week resulted in me bringing home not one but two picture books by this impressive author. Yeah, I know, extravagant, but you've gotta numb the pain somehow...

I Saw Nothing is written through the eyes of Rosie, the young daughter of a Tasmanian timber cutter in the 1930's. Rosie had never liked Elias Churchill, one of the local trappers who visited her father. She liked him even less when she discovered that he had snared a tiger-wolf. Rosie told her Dad about it:

"A tiger-wolf?" he said. "Haven't seen one of them for years. He'll be after the bounty."
"Bounty?" I said.
"They reckon the tiger-wolves are killin' the sheep."
"What sheep?" I wanted to know. "There aren't any sheep around here."
"Maybe not," he said. "But he'll still get a pound for the scalp. The government's tryin' to get rid of them tiger-wolves."

But Churchill didn't kill the tiger-wolf for its bounty – he threw it in a cage, covered in blood. It paced up and down, moaning. Rosie started to cry. Churchill had sold the tiger-wolf to the Hobart Zoo.

Several years later Rosie sneaks into the zoo to hunt for her tiger-wolf. There, she meets a lady called Alison Reid. Miss Reid tells Rosie that the real name for a tiger-wolf is a thylacine, and confides her fears that Rosie's thylacine may be the last one alive.

On September 7, 1936, Rosie's thylacine dies:

The thylacine in the photo was mine. Dead. Gone. Pined away. All alone in that stinking cage.

Rosie is left to ponder. What could she have done? Was she the last person to see the thylacine alive and free in the wild? Could she have set it free? Could she have done...something?

Gary Crew manages to tell the story of the thylacine in such a way that our kids will easily understand what lead to the extinction of this animal. By seeing and experiencing Rosie's reactions and behaviour, they might be able to see how we can all do something to prevent the extinction of a species. The text carries a message of responsibility and I think our children will get that message loud and clear. Jemimah responded with righteous indignation, "Why didn't the government do something, Mummy? Why wasn't Rosie brave enough?"

I Saw Nothing is the first book in the three book Extinct Series, I Saw Nothing: The Extinction of the Thylacine, I Said Nothing: The Extinction of the Paradise Parrot and I Did Nothing: The Extinction of the Gastric Brooding Frog. For the series, Gary Crew received a National Environment Award for Children's Literature from the Wilderness Society in Sydney on World Environment Day in 2004.

I haven't seen the others yet, but look forward to the opportunity next time I'm in the city. I only hope that I don't need to visit the dentist in order to do so!


Tiger in the Bush by Nan Chauncy is another great Australian living book about the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger, as I think of them). She won the Children's Book of the Year award for the book in 1958.

Negotiating a trail through

Bunyan in Prison 1864 by George F Follingsby in the National Gallery of Victoria

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den , and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?"

Thus begins the world's best selling book after the Bible, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. It is one of my favourite books - and it seems that I am not alone in this affection. Highly regarded as one of the most significant works of English literature, this book has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has not been out of print since it was first published in ...wait for it...1678.

Its inclusion in the Ambleside Online curriculum was one of the many things that attracted me to this wonderful curriculum, and yet as the time came for me to select a version to use with Jemimah, I found myself feeling almost as confused as Christian was when faced with many roads to take, all of which would lead him to the Celestial City. There are so many versions of this wonderful book that I 'knew not which road to take'.

First, a confession. Ahem...let me clear my throat...

Hello, My name is Jeanne and I am a Pilgrim's-Progress-aholic...

...or something like that...

When faced with the decision I describe above, I had seven, yes, seven versions of Pilgrim's Progress already on my bookshelf. Yes, you read correctly, seven! On top of that I owned an audiobook of it, and had several online versions available to me as well. Which one to chose? Now this is where the procrastinator in me came to the fore. I suppose it would be too extreme an exaggeration to say that I fell into the clutches of Giant Despair, but I did find this an extremely difficult decision to make.

It is in the interests of helping my fellow homeschooling mum should she ever fall discouraged or depressed at making this same decision that I offer this review of the various versions of Pilgrim's Progress that I have in my possession in an attempt to be an encouragement to others in the same way that Hopeful was an encouragement to Christian and prevented his giving up altogether.

Firstly, let's divide the versions into three main groups : original text; modern English; and children's versions:

Children's Retellings

I bought Pilgrim's Progress a modern retelling of the book for children by Tim Dowley when Jemimah was two or three years old and before I had ever learned of Charlotte Mason or her philosophies. Mine's a lovely hardback by Candle Books, but I've linked to an in-stock paperback.

Dowley's retelling is ideal for a kindergarten aged child. He uses modern language, and divided the story up into short sections for easy bedside readings. The cartoon style pictures depict Christian and his fellow travellers as modern men wearing jeans, tee shirts and hiking boots.

The book keeps closely to the story, and might be useful to use in the same was that AO uses Lamb's or Nesbit's children's versions before reading Shakespeare.

Dangerous Journey by Oliver Hunkin is highly regarded in CM Yahoo groups. It is out of print, but copies are still available at Koorong, so grab yours fast if this is the version you chose.

Hunkin abridges the story using John Bunyan's original words.The illustrations are gorgeous, but possibly a bit gruesome for a sensitive child. I can imagine the book providing fodder for some pretty good nightmares!!

This would be a good choice if you are concerned about your child's (or your!) ability to cope with the full length book - especially if this is the first exposure your child has had to rich living books.

Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen L. Taylor is the version I grew up with. I loved the fact that Christian and his friends were about the same age as me, and I remember being a little disappointed when I discovered that they were adults in the original story.

Written over fifty years ago, Little Pilgrim's Progress is a classic in its own right, and has sold over 600,000 copies! It is beautifully written in simple, albeit slightly old fashioned English, and is an excellent version for a younger child to read to him or herself.

Perhaps my only criticism of this book as a teen was that Taylor had changed the names of some of the characters from Bunyan's original. Apollyon was called 'Self', for example. (I didn't like the fact that people knew that I hadn't read the original!)

Modern English Editions

I bought The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English edited by Edward Hazelbaker for my husband for Christmas a few years ago. He had never read it, and I hoped that the contemporary English might tempt him to attempt this must-read Christian classic.

Despite the modernisation of the text, this version is very close to the original version. If you prefer Leslie Laurio's modernisation of Charlotte Mason's original series, you'll probably enjoy reading this version to your kids as well. The modern words would, no doubt aid in their understanding of the text.

Here's the first paragraph as a comparison:

As I was walking through the wilderness of this world, I came to a place where there was a cave. I laid down in that place to sleep, and as I slept I had a dream in which I saw a man dressed in rags standing in a certain place and facing away from his own house. He had a Book in his hand and a great burden on his back. As I looked, I saw him open the Book and read out of it, and as he read he wept and trembled. Unable to contain himself any longer, he broke out with a sorrowful cry, saying, “What shall I do?”

Original Versions

The version of Pilgrim's Progress by Christian Focus Publications is the one we finally chose for Jemimah. We're loving it!! It is well set out on quality paper with good margins and a clear text. It has beautiful etching-style illustrations of many of the characters. I show these to Jemimah during our reading, but tend to keep the full page scenes until after she has narrated herself first, for fear that they might influence her drawings.

It's an original language version with the spelling and grammar modernised. Speech marks have been added, as has an occasional "said so-an-so" to keep the characters in order. This has not changed the original text 'one whit', but sure makes it easier for me to read aloud!

The book also contains a helpful dictionary of unusual words and phrases, a timeline of Bunyan's life, and a further study section.

The Pilgrim's Progress - Lutterworth Press Edition is the version that Jemimah's Daddy ended up reading. I think he got worried that Jemimah might complete it before him!! It is, alas, out of print, but available from my friend Abe. Take a look at the exquisite illustrations by Harold Copping.

This edition contains the text exactly as it was at Bunyan's death (there were eleven editions during his lifetime), and therefore contain his latest corrections. They compared it carefully with original copies in the British Museum, and we can, therefore presume that it is pretty accurate!!

The only reason that I chose not to use this version is that it is written in difficult to read aloud script-like version:

Christian. Yes, dear sir, I am the man.
Evangelist. Did not I direct thee the way to the little Wicket-gate?
Christian. Yes, dear sir, said Christian.
Evangelist. How is it then that thou art so quickly turned aside? For thou art now out of the way.

It is, on the other hand, wonderful version to read to yourself.

I got my wonderful original version audio version of The Pilgrim's Progress from Christianaudio as a free download. Nadia May, the narrator has a pleasant English accented voice - a pleasure to listen to. You can listen to the first paragraphs here.

You can also download Pilgrim's Progress for free from Verselink. The female narrator has a pleasant voice, but I think I would find the Scripture references within the text irritating and a little confusing. Free is good, though!

This final, seventh, print version of The Pilgrim's Progress isn't mine - it's my father's. Nevertheless, it is on my bookshelves, so for the sake of completion, here it is. This beautiful leather bound edition was published sometime before 1873, the date inscribed in a beautiful copperplate hand on the flysheet.

The scanned photo doesn't do it justice. The central section of the book is a gold leaf monogram: WL for Ward and Lock, the publishers. Lavishly illustrated throughout, this is a masterpiece. I love it!

So there you are. An adventure through my bookshelves and a short introduction into the myriad versions of this wonderful book for you to peruse. There are more; many more. There are free versions available online - at Lisa Ripperton's wonderful Baldwin Classics, for example, and many more recommended by the AO advisory on their website. I do hope, though, that by showing you many of the versions readily available (and a couple that are not quite to easy to come by), that I may have been able to make your search a little easier than ours was.

The most important thing is, of course, that we read this wonderful book to our children and that by so doing we might transform them into pilgrims themselves, casting their burdens of sin and guilt at the foot of the cross, and battling valiantly until they in turn , like Christian, reach their own Celestial City of heaven. That's the important bit, isn't it?

Bapa

While on the subject of all things Aboriginal, some absolutely beautiful music from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu .

What am I, what am I?

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

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

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

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

A passing platypus solves the riddle:

You are a bunyip.

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

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

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

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

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

You are a bunyip! You look just like me.

(Collective sigh of pleasure...)

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

I've gotta bad, sore throat

(Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself or anything...)

Pray Without Ceasing

We read the last story from the wonderful devotional, How God Used A Thunderstorm today. I'm sorry it's finished, but there are five books in the series, so I can look forward to many many more pearls of wisdom from the unequaled Joel Beeke before I really need to don my basic black and go into mourning forever.

Here's an exerpt:

Unceasing Prayer

Several ministers had gathered to discuss difficult questions, and it was asked how the command to “pray without ceasing” (I Thess. 5:17) could be obeyed. Various suggestions were offered, and at last one of the ministers was appointed to write an essay on the subject for the next meeting. A young maidservant, who was serving in the room, heard the discussion and exclaimed: “What! A whole month to tell the meaning of this text? Why, it’s one of the easiest and best verses int he Bible.”

“Well, well, Mary,” said an old minister. “What do you know about it? Can you pray all the time?”

“Oh, yes sir!”

“Really? How is that possible when you have so many things to do?”

“Why, sir, the more I have to do, the more I pray.” “Indeed! Well, Mary, how do you do it? Most people wouldn’t agree with you.”

“Well, sir,” said the girl, “when I first open my eyes in the morning, I pray, ‘Lord, open the eyes of my understanding,’ and while I am dressing, I pray that I may be clothed with the robe of righteousness. While I am washing, I ask to have my sins washed away. As I begin work, I pray that I may receive strength for all the work of the day. While I kindle the fire, I pray that revival may be kindled in me. While preparing and eating breakfast, I ask to be fed with the Bread of Life and the pure milk of the Word. As I sweep the house, I pray that my heart may be swept clean of all its impurities. As I am busy with the little children, I look up to God and pray that I may always have the trusting love of a little child, and as I….”

“Enough, enough!” cried the minister. “These truths are often hid from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes, as the Lord Himself said. Go on, Mary,” he continued, “pray without ceasing. As for us brothers, let us thank the Lord for this lesson.”

Question: Can you think of other times during your day when you pray in the same way as the maid?

Scripture Reading:Luke 11:5-10

Don't you wish Mary could have given us more examples!!

Each devotional in the story book series is as inspiring as this one. The book is divided into two sections - Living for God, followed by The Value of Scripture. Each story has a strong gospel and biblical message. We really liked them and Jemimah looked forward to devotions each morning.

At the end of the devotional story there are questions for discussion and a Scripture reading (often more than one). There are also prayer points supplied which raise issues to discuss or think about that are connected with the story.

After opening with prayer and reading the story, I would generally use these discussion and prayer points as a way to discuss the application of the message to Jemimah's own life. Sometimes I wished that Dr Beeke himself had been there to answer some of her deep theological questions, though. (I always knew homeschool maths may prove a challenge, but devotions?)

For those of you who don't know him, Dr Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has written dozens of books - all of which are great to read.

Take a look at this free article of Beeke's entitled: Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children in Dependency on the Spirit. I found it incredibly challenging. I'd love to hear your opinions.

The Story of Waatji Pulyeri

The Story of Waatji Pulyeri - the blue wren.

An Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Story.

Nature stories

Billy Mink illustrated by Harrison Cady

It's funny how time flies when you're having fun. In another month we'll be finished AO2 term 1 and we'll be up to exams. Now as Jemimah's mummy and teacher, I know pretty well where she's at with most subjects. I know that she needs to spend more time practicing her times tables or she's going to have trouble getting her maths exam done in the time allowed. I know that she needs to work out some strategy to remember the order of the 10 Commandments or she will have trouble when it comes to recite her memory passage. I know that she still has problems with proper nouns and would far prefer to use a common noun instead, substituting 'the king' or worse, "he" for 'King Stephen' for example. There is a great unknown this time though and I'm quite curious to see the results...

Will Jemimah be able to untangle the huge list of mammals in The Burgess Animal Book For Children that she has studied this term and be able to give me a meaningful narration about any of them? Will she be able to draw me a picture of one, or tell me any of the distinguishing features? Can she name any members of the squirrel family, the rat family - or the mouse one?

To tell you the honest truth, I don't think she will. Why? Because I would struggle myself. Now that's not necessarily a good reason, and Jemimah has gone on to pleasantly surprise me in the past, but I just suspect that this book has too many animals in too quick a succession for her to be able to get them all right in her head without significant extra work - the type of work that I believe Miss Mason would have described as coming between the author and the child. Her definition of a Living Book was one that spoke for itself.

Since all of the animals in this book (except for Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare) are unknown in Australia, I suspect that we Antipodeans may be at quite a disadvantage here. While not even our Northern cousins would be familiar with the differences between a collared and a brown lemming or Abert's and a Kaibab squirrel, I'm guessing that most American kids would know what a squirrel was - or a chipmunk - or a woodchuck. I suspect that many would have seen a beaver dam - and probably be friendly with Paddy Beaver himself. I'm thinking that these familiar animals would provide knowledge pegs for the child to build upon... You know what a woodchuck looks like, don't you? Well a prairie dog is different because... You get the idea. Without these pegs, I think that all these animals are turning into a great big rodential megamammal with characteristics of all and features of none.

Anyway, only time will tell. In five weeks I'll be able to report on the result of Jemimah's exams. I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised.

All practicalities aside, we are enjoying this book. Thornton Burgess (1874-1965) gained a deep appreciation for nature early in his life. His output was prodigious - Burgess wrote over 170 books and 15,000 stories. He clearly had a deep love of birds and animals and his beautifully written books reflect this affection. Despite our difficulty in keeping the animals straight, both Jemimah and I look forward to the endearing stories of Old Mother Nature and her school, and we read them with pleasure. While reading the chapter we look at a picture of the animal in a book of photos put together by Wendy Pike, a wonderful AO mum who provided pictures free to anyone who asked for them. (If you do a search of Wendy's name on the AO yahoo group, this post comes up. You may be able to email Wendy if you're keen for your own copy.) Jemimah's narrations after the reading are lively and full of attention to detail - and detail there is in this book.

Within the pages of the book, we have come to know many of the characters that Thornton Burgess writes about in his other books and stories: Peter Rabbit, Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink and Jerry Muskrat amongst them. Many of these characters star in Burgess' Bedtime Story-Books. Now this series really bring the animals to life - in a way that I don't believe that The Burgess Animal Book for Children achieves. Each of book of this series concentrates on an individual species and through the pages you come to really know the animal.

As smart and clever as you are,
A Mink may smarter be by far.
Billy Mink.

We found The Adventures of Billy Mink in a second-hand bookshop many years ago, and bought it for $8.00. Through its pages we got to know Billy and his kind. We learned about his food, his home, his food preferences and his habits. We came to know - and to dislike his preferences. To this day, Jemimah has a great deal of affection for the mink - and she knows a considerable amount about them.

The jury is out. Is it better for a child in AO2 to know a little about lots of animals or a lot about a few? I'm inclined that Miss Mason would advocate learning a lot about a few as she does in men from the pages of history. Anyhow, we'll see how we go.

So, given that we have none of these mammals in Australia, is it worth using Burgess' books in the Great Southern Land? Well yes, I think so. It's really hard to enjoy Wind in the Willows of you don't know what a mole and a badger are. Beatrix Potter would be a bit of a mystery without knowledge of a squirrel and a hedgehog how could we follow Laura through the Big Woods without worrying about a panther or a bear! Knowing only about Australian animals and Australian things would make us very insular indeed.

Australia doesn't really have an animal author of the calibre of Thornton Burgess. He really stands alone in his ability to kindle in our children an appreciation for those critters who live out in God's beautiful creation. We do have a man who comes close, however.

His name is Charles Kenneth Thompson. Ever heard of him?

Born in 1904, C. K. Thompson (1904-1980) was Burgess' contemporary. He lived most of his life in the Hunter region of New South Wales. A journalist by profession, he was for several decades a court reporter and sub-editor at the Newcastle Sun. After authoring several books for adults, in 1945 he published a story about a grey kangaroo called Joey in his novel, King of the Ranges. Joey is a small kangaroo orphaned before his mother could fully impart to him all the bushlore that bush creatures need to fend for and protect themselves. Joey undergoes many trials before he finally becomes King of the Ranges. It's a great story, and much as in Burgess' Bedtime Story Books, you learn heaps about the Grey Kangaroo on the way.

Thompson writes about animals and birds as they are. He doesn't anthropomorphise them - nor does he see them through rose-coloured glasses. He tells it like it is.

Books by C. K. Thompson in the same series include:

*King of the Ranges (Grey Kangaroo)

*Red Emperor (Red Kangaroo)

*Monarch of the Western Skies (Wedgetailed Eagle)

*Warrigal the Warrior (Dingo)

*Maggie the Magnificent (Australian Magpie)


Willie Wagtail (Obvious, really?)

Tiger Cat

Blackie the Brumby

Thunderbolt the Falcon

Wild Canary (I haven't seen this book, but presume that this is a zebra finch!)

One last book of C. K.'s is well worth a mention: Old Bob's Birds.

Old Bob is a swaggie. In the book he imparts all his knowledge about the birds he has met during a lifetime of wandering to his two young friends, Roddie and his sister Susan. With a chapter on each bird, this is an excellent substitute for The Burgess Bird Book For Children. We use it in AO1.

It's good. They all are.