Autumn leaves for art and story-telling

It is Autumn in Melbourne, and the weather in the past week has definitely left Summer behind - even though the forecast for the next few days will make a liar out of me!

So thanks to a leaf template from Alphabet Glue, Volume Three, this week I made an Autumn tree for our pinboard - the same pinboard that was covered in this a year or so ago.

Sometimes it's fabulous to create a new project alongside the kids - other times it's great to put it all up and surprise them. This one was a surprise - the big kids came home one day from school and found this ...

And then they promptly added their own touch to it - which was exactly what I wanted!

Annie at Alphabet Glue suggested using these leaf templates as bunting to showcase your child's story. I decided to use the leaves to create an ongoing story, written a leaf at a time, by anyone who felt like it. I used brown packaging paper for the tree and odd bits of scrapbook paper for the leaves. I pinned the blank leaves to the tree, and then used string and pegs to attach the 'story' leaves as they are written.

Our story so far includes a tree, an alien and a paper plane - who knows where it will finish?

"This is almost easy" cupcakes

We have been without an oven for six months. Six months! I kid you not! While waiting for a part to arrive in Australia (thanks to our inherited Italian oven), we have cooked pasta, stir-fry and risotto, and pan-fried or barbequed our meat. But the list of what we have missed is long - cakes of all descriptions, this blueberry scone, slices, rhubarb crumble, chocolate pudding, roast lamb, zucchini slice, chicken parmigiana, these chocolate chip biscuits, scones, baked snapper, homemade pizza ....

But last week, the oven part arrived and was installed by my wonderful neighbour - and we have literally been cooking with gas!

Annalise requested cupcakes, and we chose our recipe from this picture book - "Ruby and Leonard and the Great Big Surprise" by Judith Rossell. Ruby and Leonard are two mice who decide to cook some cupcakes as a surprise for their brothers and sisters. "It will be easy," Leonard said.

I am slightly biased towards this book as Jude, the author and illustrator, taught me in an RMIT writing course last year. And now I am even more biased after cooking her cupcake recipe!

This is a lovely book for kids who love to cook. My kids have cooked enough with me to know that of course, you need eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla essence etc to make cupcakes. So the instructions in the story are already familiar. Annalise tended to agree with Ruby - "This is almost easy," said Ruby.

The humour comes from the illustrations - gorgeous mice with heaps of personality who are cracking eggs, sifting flour and mixing ingredients. The scale of the illustrations - small mice trying to manage large cooking utensils - really appealed to Annalise's imagination.

And the cupcakes really appealed to all of us! The kids mixed up the icing - Tom's lurid blue is nowhere near as delicate as Jude's colours - but apparently it tasted good!

'Hugo' book vs movie

My Mum, being the literary trendsetter that she is, gave me a copy of 'Hugo' when it first came out in 2007. I loved the combination of illustrations and words - a perfect blend where, as in all good picture books, the illustrations tell the story when the words are silent.

Over the Christmas holidays, I read it to Tom and Annalise. It was really for Tom (age 8), but like most second-born kids, Annalise (age 5) did not want to miss out on anything that Tom was doing. They both felt that listening to the whole thick book of over 500 pages was quite an achievement, and like me, they loved the combination of illustration and words. Needless to say, there has been quite a bit of detailed cross-hatching drawing going on!

While I promised both the kids I would take them to see the movie once we had read the book, I decided to take just Tom. That's one of the differences between a book and film - the scary parts of a film are really magnified. I was glad that Annalise stayed at home, cooking with her Dad, rather than seeing the film - I think it would have been too complex for her.

Tom and I were both enthralled! I loved all the Paris scenery and Tom loved the cogs and wheels of the clocks. Being a fix-it, muck around with bits of wire and wood sort of kid, he was fascinated with the mechanical man.

We both liked the way the characters were portrayed - I can forgive differences in the plot but I dislike changed characters from the book to the film.

I'm glad the film used one of my favourite scenes from the book, where Hugo and Isabelle look out over Paris from one of the largest clocks in the station.

Hugo tells Isabelle: I like to imagine that the word is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.


Quite a liberating thought, isn't it, that we have exactly everything we need and that there is nothing else necessary. Parenting seems to require a spare part for everything - extra lolly bags in case an extra kid turns up to the party, the ubiquitous set of spare clothes in the car, small packets of tissues in every pocket, handbag and backpack, prepared snacks in case we are ever stuck anywhere without food ... Although I am reluctant to give up my extra tissues, perhaps I can take comfort in the fact that just maybe I have everything necessary within to parent my kids?

School beginnings

This book, "Splat the Cat" has it all:

- an adorable feline
- a teacher called Mrs Wimpydimple
- alliteration with a tail that wiggled wildly with worry
- many novel excuses for not going to school  - "The front door won't let me out, Mum" or "The gate won't let go of my fingers, Mum." 
- a clever pet mouse called Seymour who lives with Splat
- a cat worried about starting school, who learns some amazing facts, saves the day with Seymour and looks forward to coming back to school!

Rob Scotton, the author and illustrator, has created a very likeable character, who is a little anxious about starting school.

My very likeable 8yo and 5yo characters drew some pictures of Splat with charcoal today. While I admire Scotton's incredibly detailed illustrations - look at the individual cat hairs on the cover! - I am equally awed by Tom and Annalise's 'smudged to perfection' charcoal cats!

Settling into school books

I thought I'd do a little series on settling into school, for all the little ones beginning school and for any anxious older ones. It is always comforting to know that others have gone before you, and have faced similar situations, regardless of whether you are a cat or a witch's child. In fact, sometimes the more fantastical the setting or character, the less 'preachy' or moralistic the story.

In this story,"The witch's children go to school" by Ursula Jones, the witch's children don't really go to school, but they meet Gemma who is about to have her first school day. But only if she is brave enough to move past the Class Three kids.

The oldest child of the witch has an idea - and uses a spell to change Gemma into an ogre, "because ogres aren't scared of anyone." The fun begins now - all teachers, caretakers, students and animals are turned one by one into a storybook creature - so that Gemma the ogre does not feel so alone.

The witch's children get a little carried away, and haven't learnt enough about spells to change anyone back.

"Now we've got trouble," mewed the school cat.

The only person who can help is Mum! So the witch's children summon Mum.

And the Eldest One shouted, "I've lost my pants."
"I can't find my dress," the Middle One wailed.
And the Little One yelled, "Where are my socks?"

Mum not only knows where the missing clothes are, but she knows how to turn the ogre, the storybook, the dancing princesses, the tiger, the swans, the gingerbread men and all the other storybook people back into students, teachers and the school cat.

Russell Ayto's illustrations are hilarious - there are definitely no traditionally scary witchy figures here at all. Lots of bright colours and active characters. My favourite double page spread is the one with the three open-mouthed children, shouting for Mum.

It was a bit like that at 5.30pm in our house today!