Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2011)

Inside Out & Back Again is the chronicle of  a ten year old Vietnamese girl during 1975. Hà, her mother and her three older brothers live in Saigon. Her parents had come south just before the borders between North and South Vietnam had closed. Her father had been in the navy and was captured by the Communists while on a mission. It wasn’t known if he was dead or alive.
One day their father’s best friend, Uncle Son, visited them and said he could get them out of the country. The alley outside their back door would allow them to bypass the navy checkpoint and give them access to the port.

'I will not risk
fleeing with my children
on a rickety boat.

Would a navy ship
meet your approval?

As if the navy
would abandon its country?

There won’t be a South Vietnam
left to abandon.

You really believe
we can leave?

When the time comes,
this house is our bridge
to the sea.'

Two of Hà’s brothers don’t want to leave the country but their mother had lived in the North. She knew that her son at college would eventually be asked to leave; her younger son would come home from school chanting the slogans of Hồ Chí Minh and be rewarded for reporting everything that was said in the home to his teacher.

The family destroyed everything at home that could be used as evidence against their father and taking only necessary items, they boarded a ship. Two weeks later while they were at sea, there was a formal lowering of their flag as the commander announced that South Vietnam no longer existed.

Although Inside Out & Back Again is a work of fiction, it is based on the author’s own experience as a Vietnamese refugee. It is written in free form verse in short, crisp, ‘visual’ phrases which reflect the sound of the Vietnamese language. (Hà would have been thinking in Vietnamese and not English.)
I think the free verse works very well for this book. My teacher daughter gave me this book to read and said that she read it aloud to her 6th Grade class at school when studying immigration. The family in this book eventually settled in Alabama in the USA, as did the author, but their experiences, in many ways, mirror those of refugees who came to Australia.
Here are some ideas my daughter used with this book:

*  Mapped out Ha’s journey

*  Looked at literal and figurative language and used this to help us discuss the culture shock for the main character

*  Discussed what it would be like to view things that are normal to us from the perspective of someone seeing them for the first time (took photos of the classroom, what do you think your first impression would be?)

*  Annotated poems from the book

*  Performed poems

*  Wrote our own free verse poems

*  Looked at the history - push and pull factors of migration

*  Discussed racism and how people often treat people who are unfamiliar or “other” badly or dismiss them as inferior. How does this affect the main characters experiences? How might her experiences have been different without these attitudes?

Inside Out & Back Again was a 2012 Newbery Honor Book and is a very accessible book for younger readers to introduce them to the Vietnam War, immigration and free form poetry. Recommended for ages 9 to 12 years of age but interesting for older readers also.

Review of AmblesideOnline Year 6 - the second time around

This is the second time we've done AO Year 6. I wrote about Benj's beefed up Year 6 here. He was 13 years of age at the time so I made a few alterations to accomodate that. Moozle is 12 years old, and although I made some modifications here and there, most of what she did followed the schedule at AmblesideOnline.
The AO Geography schedule changed during the year and as we'd already done Halliburton's Book of Marvels the year before, (see my Pinterest page for some resources I put together) this is what we actually did:

Ist Term:

The Story of David Livingstone by Vautier Golding


2nd & 3rd Term:

A Child's Geography of the Holy Land by Ann Voscamp & Toni Peckover

I've used this before & focussed mostly on the readings and mapping the various locations. Moozle also enjoyed making some of the recipes included in the book. This book meshed nicely with the study of the Ancients in Year 6.

And she started a Geography notebook:

History Tales/Biography

We stopped using Trial & Triumph a few years ago and Moozle continued with Passion for the Impossible, a Year 5 read that we didn't get to finish.
In place of Genesis, Finding Our Roots, she read the alternative AO suggestion Ben Hur.

History

We finished the final three chapters of History of Australia & followed AO's History schedule.
For Asian studies she read, Little Brother by Allan Baillie, which is set in Cambodia.

Australian Literature:

Golden Fiddles by Mary Grant Bruce (1928)

Natural History & Science:


We followed the AO recommendations and they were some of her favourite books.

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson, adapted by Anne Terry White - I read this aloud, skipping the first chapter. Actually I gave her a basic outline of the evolutionary beliefs outlined in that first section and she laughed and said, "There was a big bang and all the fishes turned into men!"
It is an exceptional book in many ways but it needs some up to date explanations in places, thank you, YouTube! I made a playlist relating to the chapters here.
My Occeanography & Marine Biology Pinterest board has some other links also.
A picture of the copy I have & the table of contents:

 

We also made good use of The University of Nottingham's periodic videos when reading The Elements and The Mystery of the Periodic Table. Over the course of both these books Moozle wrote down the elements she learned on this free downloadable blank PDF of the Periodic Table.
(Edited to add: Interactive Periodic Table - in pictures & words)
Moozle has made regular entries into her science notebook which she started in Year 5. I wrote a post about some of her notebooks here.

I read aloud My Family & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell - some editing done on the go, but it's a fun and interesting book.

We continue to use The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock plus the following Australian titles:

Nature Studies in Australia by William Gillies & Robert Hall

This one was great when we did some nature study at the beach earlier this year:

 
The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws - I was unsure whether to buy this book as I didn't know how much use we'd get out of it but we watched a couple of John Muir Law' videos on Youtube and they were helpful so I bought it. The book contains much that can be used wherever you live - drawing and watercolour techniques, as well as the use of other art media; observation skills, types of materials to use, working in the open & making fast and accurate field sketches; drawing landscapes. There are a few examples (some birds, a bear) that are specific to the USA, or not found here in Australia, but the methods he uses to demonstrate how to draw and journal are universal. It was definitely a good buy! Moozle has been working her way through it & has picked up many useful hints.

 Not an Aussie bird, but learning some skills with watercolour and composition...

 

Health: We read this book together: The Care & Keeping of You 2 

Maths:  Continuing with Saxon 76 after about five years of Singapore Maths.

Shakespeare:

We listened to a recording and read along with the script and then watched this movie. It was on Youtube but it looks like it's been removed.

Plutarch

We're about half way through Julius Caesar so will continue that. This life seems a bit longer than some of the others we've done but it's a good one to study especially as he's been around in a few of the Year 6 books.

French

At the beginning of the year we started French for Children B, published by Classical Academic Press after completing French for Children A. It's excellent.

Latin

A combination of Getting Started With Latin and Our Roman Roots by James R. Leek, an out of print curriculum I've used off and on for a number of years.

Grammar

We haven't done a lot of English grammar this year as the French curriculum we're using has plenty,  and since starting French for Children, her understanding of grammar has jumped significantly. When we do cover grammar, it's with Easy Grammar Plus by Wanda C. Phillips, which I started using with Benj about eight years ago & continue to use. It's different to many other grammar programmes in that it gets students to identify prepositions & prepositional phrases before anything else & once that's done it's so much easier to identify other parts of speech.

Free Reading (besides the AO list) Books marked with an * are 'highly recommended.'



Devils' Hill by Nan Chauncy (set in Tasmania)
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne *
Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott
The Cargo of the Madalena by Cynthia Harnett
How They Kept the Faith by Grace Raymond
The Adventures of Shelock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *

These Agatha Christie novels are in the Tommy & Tuppence series:
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie*
N or M? by Agatha Christie *
Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie*

The following books are by L.M. Montgomery:

Emily of New Moon *
Emily Climbs *
Emily's Quest *
Kilmeny of the Orchard

Moozle says 'Of course I'd highly recommend every Biggles book!!' *****

Biggles & the Blue Moon
Biggles and the Missing Millionaire
Biggles Takes a Hand

All the Biggles' titles above are out of print.

Education - an Act of Faith

'Education, like faith, is the evidence of things not seen...' so Charlotte Mason said.

Educating my own children has been an act of faith in many ways. Sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for the fruit of what you're doing to show itself. Education requires discipline, time, energy and perseverance. It's not an overnight venture. Sometimes I need to remind myself to:

 '...stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.'

1 Corinthians 15:58

With the above in mind, here are some of the areas I've been seeing fruit in and where education is something my daughter is pursuing of her own accord: 

The Discipline of Regular Drawing Practice

 

Nature notebook - this is now a regular & self-initiated habit after many years of having it as part of our weekly schedule:

Our current read-aloud (some editing required) - Natural History from the point of view of a ten year old boy living on the island of Corfu just prior to the second world war and a peek into a living education - we're enjoying this so much!

'With the summer came Peter to tutor me, a tall, handsome young man fresh from Oxford, with decided ideas on education which I found rather trying to begin with. But gradually the atmosphere of the island worked its way insidiously under his skin, and he relaxed and became quite human. At first the lessons were painful to an extreme: interminable wrestling with fractions and percentages, geological strata and warm currents, nouns, verbs, and adverbs. But, as the sunshine worked its magic on Peter, the fractions and percentages no longer seemed to him an overwhelmingly important part of life and they were gradually pushed more and more into the background; he discovered that the intricacies of geological strata and the effects of warm currents could be explained much more easily while swimming along the coast, while the simplest way of teaching me English was to allow me to write something each day that he would correct...'

Gerald Durrell

Last week we had exams for Year 6, Term 2. I asked Moozle to write a poetic narration about 

Antony & Cleopatra:

On a roll with her drawing of roses

 Weather report, with some artistic license

Handiwork - scrapbooking has been all the rage. This is something all my girls have enjoyed but I prefer working with fabric and haven't shared their activities in this area. Fortunately, they have an Aunty who enjoys scrapbooking and when Moozle started showing a interest in scrapbooking as her older sisters had done, Her Aunty started paying her in scrapbooking paper to wash her car.
This week Moozle had her first 'consignment.' A lady at church asked her to make up an assortment of gift cards, which she paid for and then said that she would act as her 'agent' and drum up some business. Moozle is excited because now she can go out and buy more supplies!

A couple of tags she whipped up this afternoon

"I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people know more...though I know that is the noblest ambition...but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me...to have some little joy or happy thought that would never had existed if I hadn't been born."

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Listening to this when we're driving

Moozle's free reading

 The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - this is the first book in the Tommy and Tuppence series, which I let my children read when they are about 12 years of age. (Free online here) I leave Christie's other books for a later stage but this series is fun and a good introduction to the crime novel. Partners in Crime is another in the series she's been reading.

*  Children learn from real things in the real world

*  We train a child to have good habits and self-control

*  The mind needs ideas of all kinds, so the child's curriculum should be varied and generous with    
    many subjects included.

   (see Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles)

Classical Academic Press - Review & Give Away! French for Children, Primer B

At the beginning of last year my nearly 11 year old daughter started using French for Children, Primer A (FFCA) published by Classical Academic Press after a number of years of informal French study. It proved to be timely for her to commence learning this language using a more formal approach and we were both very happy with the material. I wrote about our experience here.
 
French for Children Primer B (FFCB) was published late last year and Classical Academic Press kindly sent me a copy for review purposes. I really like this Curriculum and so my review is unabashedly positive, but it is my honest opinion.
My now just turned 12 year old daughter started using FFCB in December last year and it followed on seamlessly from their previous text. It is recommended for Grades 5 to 7 and follows the same style and format as FFCA with a couple of new additions.

Overview of FFCB

17 weekly chapters, including 3 review chapters and an end-of-book review
258 pages
6 DVDs
1 CD - contains chants, vocabulary, grammar, dialogues, Say it Aloud exercises and dictation exercises. (Also available as a downloadable audio file)
There are schedules for covering the curriculum in either half a year or a full academic year of 30 weeks.

New features include:

•    an alphabetical glossary or 'mini dictionary' of all vocabulary words from Primers A & B
•    Vocabulary also listed by chapter from which it first appeared in both Primers (12 pages)
•    Appendices condensed and organised into charts: e.g. prepositions, verbs & verb conjugations, past participles

Previous concepts learned throughout FFCA are referred to briefly before they are gone into more thoroughly e.g. FFCA covers the present tense and FFCB reviews this and then introduces the future tense in Chapter 9 and the past tense in Chapter 11.
FFCA teaches Irregular verbs, Part 1 and FFCB continues with part 2 & 3.

Some thoughts:

If you were coming from a different curriculum and were thinking of starting with FFCB instead of FFCA, your child should be familiar with the following concepts first:

Infinitives
Negatives
Informal, formal forms
Definite & indefinite articles
Preposition 'de'
Cognates
verb tenses (present)
Past participle - some knowledge required

The DVD's by Joshua Kraut are excellent and contain some built-in review of the content covered in FFCA but they mostly concentrate on new material.
Speaking of DVD's, some kids (notably mine) are put off by the tone, accent or attitude of some speakers ("Do we have to listen to him?") but Mr Kraut gets the thumbs up from my lot. He is easy to listen to, has a sense of humour without being too obvious about it, and is generally very pleasant.
Below is the complete video for Chapter 1:





As I mentioned in my review of FFCA, the only thing I'd add to this curriculum would be listening to French folksongs. I have a YouTube playlist of a variety of folksongs here that we've used previously and a newer playlist here of the songs we're doing this year.

Classical Academic Press is giving away two French for Children: Primer B bundles for USA residents. Enter via Rafflecopter at Expanding Wisdom and There's No place Like Home!



Giveaways end at midnight on February 14th and February 22nd. Winners will be contacted by email. Winners that do not respond by the deadline given in the winners’ email will be replaced by random drawing.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

A New Year and New Paths

We've been slowly getting back into our normal routine after taking holidays over the Christmas break and early January. Moozle is starting back with Term 2 of Ambleside Online Year 6 and Benj has officially graduated and is beginning on a new path.

Today we did some 'formal' nature study with our nature notebooks after a couple of months of being informal and just mostly observing. We identified a new bird in our backyard, the Brown Cuckoo Dove (Macropygia Phasianell), also know as a pheasant pigeon. I snapped a photo but only managed to get his tail before he flew off into the bush. He sounds almost like an owl, 'whoop, whoop.'

The Handsome St. Andrew's Cross Spider

Moozle's Notebook

My notebook

I'm ridiculously happy about my Lebanese eggplant. It's quite difficult to grow anything edible around here between the wallabies and the possums, so everything is in pots on the verandah.
Moozle is growing two corn plants in pots from seeds her Aunty P gave her and they seem to be doing well. I've never used eggplant as the first time I ate it years ago I was violently sick afterwards!  It's taking me years to be game enough to try it again and when I did I was fine. Now I have to find some good recipes...

After five years of using Singapore Maths, we've made the transition to Saxon 76. (I have the old hardback 3rd edition books). I usually start Saxon with the 54 book but I decided to keep on with Singapore for a while longer. I gave her a placement test about a month ago and I was pleasantly surprised that she managed it well as maths, unlike some of her siblings, hasn't been her favourite subject.

French


We started Classical Academic Press French for Children Primer B late last year and have been pleased with it. No surprise, as their Primer A was excellent. (I wrote a review here)
Stay tuned towards the end of January for a review of Primer B and a giveaway!

Moozle thinks she might be an architect (which is an improvement on a 'cat lady' i.e. having a house full of felines and occasionally selling one) and loves this series of DVDs which she watches with her Dad. She even drew up some plans for a granny flat to build for us when we get old!

This week we were reading about the element helium for science and this video my Aunty in Scotland posted recently was very timely!





Benj has enrolled at Campion College and will be studying a Bachelor of Liberal Arts Degree beginning in late February. He's only just turned 17 and in the past we've waited until our kids were 18 before starting university but Campion is a different kettle of fish to the large mainstream institutions. It only has about 200 students and receives no government funding. There was an intersting article recently in The Australian newspaper recently:

'...if our civilisation has a future in Australia, it is connected to Campion College. For Campion has done something that no other institution of higher learning has attempted in Australia. It has dedicated itself entirely to teaching undergraduates about the great tradition, based on the great books, of Western civilisation.

This is not such a novel idea overseas. Campion is Australia’s only liberal arts college but such beasts abound in the US. They include some of the most venerable and distinguished institutions of learning in North America. And they are all based on the same central idea — that the best way to learn the big ideas of Western civilisation is to study its important books and historical figures.'

In the meantime he is doing a Swim Australia Teaching course, building up his night driving hours so he can get his licence, teaching piano, and heading off to a youth camp next week. Plus he will be using his great organising skills to clean up the pantry and the storage under the stairs for me.

Our Reading

Moozle:

Penrod by Booth Tarkington - this is a free read for Ambleside Online Year 6 which she enjoyed.

Silver Brumby Echoing by Elyne Mitchell - another book in a much loved series.

Tales of a Korean Grandmother by Frances Carpenter - written in 1947, these 32 traditional tales provide a peek into Korean culture.

Benj: 

 Lord of the Rings trilogy - his annual re-reading

The Martian by Andy Weir - just be aware there is some language in places, noteably on the first page. The film was very good and according to my eldest boy, the book is great, so he bought it for his younger brother for Christmas.

Older ones in the family read:

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

The Survivor by Vince Flynn with Kyle Mills - Sadly, Vince Flynn died about three and a half years ago. My husband really enjoyed his novels and as he'd read just about all his others, I bought this one. Sometimes authors who take on another's work do a complete hash but fortunately, this was done in a similar style and my husband enjoyed it.

And finally, for the Aussie mums out there (or any others who may be visiting Australia later in the year) the Mum Heart Conference will be held at Newcastle in June. I was so refreshed when I went along in 2015 so I felt very honoured to be asked to speak at one of the sessions and to run a Charlotte Mason workshop this year. Hope to see some of you there!

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up
&
Keeping Company

A Week in Review

We're winding down prior to Christmas and holidays. Benj has finished his Liberal Arts course and has his graduation ceremony tomorrow.
Last weekend he was involved in a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as part of this course. He got to choose a role and decided to play Valentine, Duke Orsino's servant, mostly because there weren't too many lines! Acting isn't something he enjoys too much so it was a bit out of his comfort zone but he performed his part well.
He spent half the day yesterday trying out keyboards at the music shop. He finished 8th grade piano and passed the exam with Honours so he gets to choose an instrument. We've done that for all our children although our violinist daughter ended up with her choice of a violin before she finished her studies because she needed a good quality violin for the higher grades.

Moozle is finishing up part way through her term of work and we'll just pick up where we left off in January. She had her orchestra audition last week and was given the choice to either move up to the Symphony - she's just old enough, or stay in the Strings & Sinfonia and have the role of lead cellist. She chose the latter, which surprised me, as she tends to want to grow up too quickly being the youngest of seven.

Last week my sister-in-law and I went to a live performance of Handel's Messiah which was excellent. We had a huge storm come over and in the middle of one of the tenor's solos, a great crash of thunder overhead caused us all to gasp and jump - not the tenor. He didn't miss a beat. We were impressed with both him and the storm. It was a very fitting accompaniment to such majestic music.

About a year ago I read The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis and it was one of the hardest books I've tackled. This week I found this and thought it would be a good way to 'read' the book again. It's one of those books that needs to be read and re-read to appreciate its depths:





We'll be visiting family in Northern NSW and Queensland during the Christmas break and finding this book was timely as it's set in the Tweed Valley are where we will be spending some time.

Pastures of the Blue Crane by H. F. Brinsmead (1964) is an enjoyable 'coming of age' story which is suitable for around ages 15 and up. Ryl is a 16 year old girl whose mother had died years before and  has had virtually no contact with her father, except for one letter a year. From a very young age she was put into a variety of homes for children and then into boarding school. When her father dies suddenly she is called into his solictor's office where she meets her grandfather for the first time. He and his son had had a disagreement when Ryl was an infant and had not spoken to each other since. Ryl had no idea that he existed. The two had been left a run down old farm and ended up moving from Melbourne to the Northern NSW coast. Now they had to get to know each othe which was not an easy task as both of them are hostile and stubborn.
The descriptions of the area and the journey of the two as they learn to care and rely on each other makes for an interesting read. There is an unlikely twist to the story but I appreciated the way the author explored the growth of two misanthropic characters in their relationship with each other and the issue of race relationships. The author touches on the 'Kanakas' or 'Blackbirds' and the White Australia Policy.

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up

Little Brother by Allan Baillie

Allan Baillie's book Little Brother was published in 1985 and tells the gripping story of two brothers, Vithy and Mang, aged about eleven and eighteen years respectively, who were the only members of their family left alive after the communist Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975.
Renaming the country Kampuchea, the Communist Party set out to establish a rural based utopia and systematically annihilated anyone thought to be intellectual or educated, the wealthy and the religious leaders. The cities were emptied and people were placed into labour camps out in the country or executed if they were not able to work.

Little Brother begins with Vithy and Mang running through the forest after their captors were attacked by Vietnamese soldiers. They were pursued and forced to separate when Vithy fell and hurt his foot. Mang hid him in the undergrowth and then ran off to divert the soldiers - but Mang didn't return and Vithy was left on his own to follow his brother's last words - 'Follow the lines out of the war...go to the border.'

Finding books that deal with situations such as those experienced by children in Cambodia that are suitable for younger children, allowing them to get a sense of what happened without traumatising them in the process, is quite difficult. Allan Baillie has managed to do this so well with this book. He tells the story through Vithy's eyes and employs a sort of flashback technique where Vithy recalls conversations with his brother or memories of certain events that fills in the details for the reader, without imparting the real horror that occurred. The character Vithy is based on a boy the author met at a refugee camp in Cambodia.

Mang had told him, many months ago, that the only way to survive in the Big Paddy was to be careful and dumb. Work hard, never let them know that you can read and write and handle arithmetic. Always rememeber your kid sister, Sorei. And above all, never think. But now he had to.

Vithy eventually finds his way to a Red Cross camp on the Thai border and wins his way into the heart of a crusty Australian doctor. I won't tell you any more but the book has a very satisfying ending...

Allan Baillie was born in Scotland and came to Australia when he was seven years of age. He has a background in journalism, has travelled to various parts of the world and many of his stories were inspired by his travels and experiences in foreign countries.

Recommended for Years 5 or 6. I use it as an Ambleside Online Year 6 free read.


Linking up with Brona's Books for AusReading Month 

Ambleside Online Year 6: looking back on the week

We finished Shakespeare's King Lear yesterday. Moozle wrote this narration on the play today in 'the style of Plutarch.'

I've mentioned in previous posts that we were watching a movie version of King Lear on YouTube. We've got as far as the end of the eighth video but I'll probably skip at least the next two for Moozle as I think they're a bit too gory in places for her at this stage, although all in all, the movie is quite well done.

AO Year 6 has some interesting science books scheduled: starting off with The Mystery of the Periodic Table, a biography of Albert Einstein and The Elements by Theodore Gray in Term 1 and adding in a number of others as the year progresses, so we began a Science Notebook as she's been itching to add it after seeing what her older siblings have done previously. As I've done with the others, I added in the Periodic Table of the Elements videos on the Nottingham University website. She watches these after reading chapters from The Mystery of the Periodic Table & The Elements. 

I'm looking forward to reading Rachel Carson's, The Sea Around Us, which Benj enjoyed a few years ago. I posted some videos and other resources on Pinterest when he did it, but this time I think I'll put them in a blog post as they are scattered all over my Pinterest pages and are hard to find.

This is a creative narration from a later chapter in the above book:

Art

A painting in acrylics, copied from a photo:

Reading

In case you haven't realised, Moozle is a book gobbler. She reads incredibly quickly, as did Zana, one of her older sisters, but they both have excellent recall, regardless. This week she has been re-reading some of the Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce plus a whole stack of Patricia St John titles.

  


As I've substituted Australian content for some of the American titles in the Ambleside Online curriculum over the past five years, I haven't worried too much about keeping historical fiction in chronolgical order, especially as all my children have loved reading and it's been hard to keep up with their reading habits. We read books such as John of the Sirius by Doris Chadwick, Stowaway by Karen Hesse and many other Australian titles as family read alouds regardless of what historical time period we were studying. The younger ones listened in as I read to the older ones and picked up so much history on the way. My girls read the Billabong books for themselves as soon as they were able and I didn't wait until they came to the historical time period they were studying before I gave them the books. That said, I haven't found it difficult to supply them with great books for the time periods they study, but it has freed me up in some ways so that I can include classic books other than predominantly Australian titles - from Scotland & New Zealand, for example - over the course of their education.

Benj, Moozle and I have been listening to this Sherlock Holmes audiobook narrated by Ruth Golding on our car trips:

Linking up at Weekly Wrap-up