Sally Rippin (Photo courtesy of Piccolo Angelo Photography)
The school year is winding down, summer is approaching and no matter whether you are religious or not, it seems everyone and everything around us is heading towards…
CHRISTMAS!
Christmas means different things to different people. For some, it’s a lovely excuse to get together with family, for others it’s a stress-laden, materialistic, consumerist blow-out! For some people, it can be a confronting, lonely time, for others it’s rich with tradition, meaning and deep, spiritual connection. However, no matter what we feel about this time of the year, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid it. So why not find ways to play around with tradition and create something that is meaningful to you?
In the past, my deepest discomfort towards Christmas has been about all the plastic crap we exchange that only ends up in landfill. Frantic and anxious last-minute shopping for gifts means often we end up giving something just for the sake of giving, and nobody benefits from this, least of all our poor, plastic-choked planet. Happily, this year, my family have decided to be more mindful about their Christmas gift exchanges and we have pledged to only give each other recycled or hand-made gifts (like op-shop finds, baked goods or craft) or experiences (tickets to shows, the zoo or the aquarium). The only exception we are making to this rule is for books. Because, well, in my family books are everything! (As well as being beautifully biodegradable.)
So, in the spirit of a less consumerist Christmas, here are my picks for the younger members of your family. As this is my last post for the year, I’m also allowing myself to mess with the categories I started out with and will use the ones that most reflect the spirit of Christmas for me.
Food and Family
Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street
by Felicita Sala
One of the things I most enjoy about Christmas is to sit around a table with my family and share a meal together. We all contribute to this in various ways, though admittedly some of us are better cooks than others. My sisters still tease me about my terrible attempt at experimenting with cake recipes, whereas I really don’t understand my mother’s insistence on doing the full English ham and turkey on a forty degree day! But somehow, we always end up with an incredible meal, and always with way more than we could ever possibly eat in one day.
Lunch At 10 Pomegranate Street, is not only a glorious celebration of food and cooking, but also a fabulous collection of easy recipes for children to follow, taken from countries all around the world. We meet old Mr Ping who tosses broccoli and ginger in his wok to Signora Lella’s famous tomato and garlic spaghetti. All of them live in a big house together on Pomegranate Street and at the end of the book, each brings a plate to share at a huge table set up on their front lawn. Food, family and fun, along with exquisite illustrations, this is a book your children will treasure.
Buy it here
Culture, Spirituality and History
Cheeky Dogs: To Lake Nash and Back
by Dion Beasley and Johanna Bell
Sometimes it is easy to forget that the original culture of this country is not Christian, as its celebrations so dominate our calendar. While many of us celebrate Chinese New Year, Jewish Hanukkah or Muslim Ramadan, few of us know much about our rich indigenous culture and history. Fortunately, there seem to be more and more books published recently to introduce children to Aboriginal stories, some historical and some contemporary.
Dion Beasley and Johanna Bell have already collaborated on two wonderful picture books; Too Many Cheeky Dogs and the award-winning Go Home, Cheeky Animals. Their latest collaboration is an illustrated memoir written and illustrated by Dion, who has muscular dystrophy and is profoundly deaf. As explained in the book, “with no speech and limited Auslan, Dion found primary school tough. Joie Boulter, one of the teaching staff (and now Dion’s carer and guardian) noticed how much he loved to draw camp dogs. She bought him a stack of paper and pencils and encouraged his art. Dion drew every day and in 2006, Joie helped him establish his own textile company Cheeky Dogs, which has become a much-loved Northern Territory brand.”
This beautifully produced book is part-illustrated diary, part-poetic reflections on life through Dion’s unique perspective of the world. Sharing this with your child is a lovely way to experience the world through the eyes of a person living with a disability in a remote part of the country few of us will ever have the opportunity to know. Other books I highly recommend to help your kids understand more about our indigenous history are Young Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe and anything by Ambellin Kwaymullina or Boori Monty Pryor.
Buy it here
Giving
Funny Bones, Total Quack Up Again! and The Sound of the Dark
What better way to celebrate the spirit of giving than by gifting a book that benefits not only our children, but also kids who are less fortunate than ours? Funny Bones and Total Quack Up are not just fabulous and funny collections of stories for kids of all ages, but all the royalties go to charities that make a difference in the lives of children here and overseas.
Funny Bones (edited by Kate and Jol Temple, and Oliver Phommavanh) supports War Child, which works in some of the world’s most extreme environments, helping keep kids safe, providing them with an education, and giving them hope for a brighter future.
Total Quack Up! and Total Quack Up Again! edited by Adrian Beck and myself, supports kids closer to home, through Dymocks Children’s Charities, who work to get books into the hands of disadvantaged kids across the country by regenerating school libraries and funding literacy support programs.
The Sound of the Dark is different to the above anthologies in that it is a gloriously spooky collection of stories for kids, published through the 100 Story Building writing centre in Melbourne’s west. All of these stories were written and edited by young Australians, with the help of children’s author Oliver Phommavanh, whose hilarious stories also appear in the above two anthologies.
The Sound of the Dark is beautifully produced and illustrated by amazing local talent, such as comic artist Ben Hutchings and illustrator Simon O’Carrigan, and if you dare to peek inside you will be able to do such things as complete a quiz to find out which mythical creature you are most likely to transform into or choose your own spooky adventure. Who needs a jolly Christmas when you can be spooked, right? And all for a great cause.
Buy it here
So, this Christmas, let’s think big and think outside of our own families. Let’s think of kids less fortunate than ours, let’s think of the original custodians of this land, and most importantly, let’s think of our beautiful big planet before we shove more gift-wrapped plastic under our Christmas trees that will still be here long after we are gone.
Hope your summer is long and peaceful, and full of opportunities to curl up with a good book.
Best wishes,
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