a whale of a counting ride!

a whale of a counting ride!

Counting is fun. Counting backwards is even more fun. Counting funny animals backwards — best! In this totally charming book, animals line up roughly by size—and there’s a bossy seagull who keeps them all in line while they wait. The animals make cheeky jokes, push and shove each other and play a game of animal Word Chain. It’s all lots of fun and things build to a surprising and funny climax.

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movie night: Children of Heaven + a lovely friendship book

movie night: Children of Heaven + a lovely friendship book

ages 5 years and up (if you're willing to read out subtitles)
Here’s a wonderful movie that you might like to try for a family movie night. Children of Heaven is an Iranian film about a boy who loses his sister’s only pair of shoes. Their family is poor and their mother is ill so the children conspire to share the boy’s shoes. It’s sad, funny, charming and troubling all at once. 

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wonderful, accessible history about one of Australia's great pride and joys

wonderful, accessible history about one of Australia's great pride and joys

ages 2 to 8 years
One of my uncles was a pilot for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) a few years ago—it was a terribly romantic profession. The goodness and ingenuity of the RFDS is widely agreed upon all around Australia. But, as Australia continues to be quickly urbanised, fewer of us have personal connections and stories about the Flying Doctors and the pilots and the nurses. That’s where Meet the Flying Doctors comes in

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embracing rough play

embracing rough play

Sam's little boy Angus is crawling now and his first order of business every day is to crawl on over and wrestle Ivy! Kid wrestling can get a bit wild to nervous adult eyes and the temptation is to call a halt to the whole of it. But there’s a growing consensus that wrestling or roughhousing is not just good for kid’s overall physical and mental health—it’s vital.

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a tender but unflinching story of Australia's Stolen Generation

a tender but unflinching story of Australia's Stolen Generation

ages 6 years to adult
Have you seen this website? It’s a collection of personal testimonies from people of the Stolen Generation. They're so very personal and real that I feel like a welcome, if naïve, guest. Each testimony includes a short personal statement

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when you were born . . . our hearts sang, our spirits soared . . .

when you were born . . . our hearts sang, our spirits soared . . .

ages newborn to 5 years
I came across this really sweet book at the library. It's a lovely collection of different animal and human parents telling their young ones what it felt like when they were born. For the bear family it was: When you were born the snow melted, the birds sang, the flowers grew. For the owls

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