Exploring Ideas

Dear Sasha, Mia, Sammy and Parsa,

This is a wonderful post. While I have never written a cartoon book, your guidelines would help me. I do like cartooning and often draw cartoons for children when I help our school holiday playgroup. My favourite characters to draw are animal characters. Here is one of my oldest characters if you are interested…

Have you ever written a book? Tell us about it.

I have written some books but none have ever been published. The last story I had time to write was over 48,000 words and was entitled, “Samuel Samantha”. It was about a boy called Samuel, although he prefers to be called, Sam. When his parents witness a crime, he has to pretend to be a girl in this story. He doesn’t face any real danger but he finds some of his ideas about girls change. He realises a girl can also be a best friend.

What steps did I take?

Perhaps I am a little different in that I don’t write down ideas for a story first. I tend to develop the ideas in my imagination then start to write out the story. When I start typing, I can often write a few thousands words within a day. It’s as though I am seeing the story in my mind and type what I see.

“Samuel Samantha” was just like that. I wondered what would happen if a boy about eight had to pretend to be a girl. The first step was to decide why this would happen then what events would happen as he took on the role. As I like a story with some sort of message, the story had to end with Sam learning something.

No matter what I have written, the next steps take longest, even longer than the writing itself. I have to edit the story…

1. I check for spelling or punctuation errors. It’s so easy to make them when you are typing quickly.
2. I need to make sure characters are the same throughout the story. Imagine if a boy named John is a man in the next chapter even though only a day has passed.
3. I look for tense errors. If I am recalling a story from the past, it shouldn’t suddenly be the future.
4. I read and reread the story just in case there are errors in consistency of the storyline. I need to know each chapter follows on from the one before so the whole story makes sense.
5. I reread again. It’s strange but I am never completely happy with a story I’ve written.
6. Finally, I decide it’s time to stop. That can be as hard as all of the editing but a writer must stop at some time.

I’ve probably left some things out but I think you get the idea. My problem is, when I decided “Samuel Samantha” was done, I was sad because Sam and his friends had become important to me and I knew my adventure with them was over.

Writing is a great hobby.

Click on this sentence if you want to see my story blog. It contains mostly very short stories I write for two writing challenges normally requiring only about 100 words (100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups and Saturday Centus). There are also some longer stories but novels like “Samuel Samantha” aren’t included.

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Hello Kidsjig,

These are wonderful ToonDoos with great information.

When Edmund Barton became Prime Minister back in 1901, it was the time of my grandparents but not of my parents as they were born in 1919 and 1930. Over 100 years ago seems like such a long time yet I have spoken to people who were around back then. I like history, especially when we have a chance to speak to people who remember what it was like.

The White Australia Policy was in for quite a long time. People back then thought they were protecting Australia from foreign invasion. They only wanted people they thought acceptable to come, preferring English but also allowing Europeans in. It lasted into the 1950s and I have memories of talk about it when I was a child. The last traces of it didn’t disappear for years.

Considering how many friends I’ve had from many different countries, cultures and religions, I would hate to go back to live in those days. I love the music, food, religions, customs and languages from around the world. Australia’s community is much richer now than it has ever been. As you say, “now we welcome everyone.”

What was it like in the 1950s when the White Australia policy started to disappear?

We didn’t have McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried and other fast food outlets. We had cafes, fish and chip shops and restaurants. People did their grocery shopping at the corner stores. The first supermarkets were starting to appear in the late 1950s but the first shopping centre in Australia was still a couple years away. I was 10 years old when I visited the newly opened shopping centre. I thought it was a magic place.

Television had started in 1956 and I remember its black and white beginning. As we had a TV, people came from around the neighbourhood to watch it. They were very expensive but my grandfather owned an electrical store so we had a demonstration set. Many neighbours didn’t have their own phone and would come to our house to make calls.

Sydney still had trams as these didn’t disappear until the 1960s. Steam trains were being used to haul passenger and freight trains although diesels were growing in numbers. I loved watching steam trains chug along or roar past with an express train. The highway between Sydney and Melbourne took much longer than today as it wound across the countryside and was two lanes most of the way. Speeds were slower and petrol was cheap.

We didn’t have dollars and cents back then because decimal money didn’t come until 1966. We used pounds, shillings and pence. When we went to the movies, everyone would stand and sing the National Anthem before the movie began. Back then our anthem was the same as England. We sang  “God Save the Queen”. Cinemas often had double features so we would watch one movie, have an intermission to go the candy counter or buy from an usher carrying around a refreshment tray.

At school, when you reached Year 3, you would start to write with a pen. You would dip the nib of your pen in your desk inkwell then write in your books. I even had a job of inkwell monitor to make sure the inkwells all had ink each day since we weren’t allowed ballpoint pens until 1963, the year I was in Grade 3. Our school bags were normally solid Globite bags. We didn’t have soft bags as you have today. Naughty children could be caned by the teacher as long as a child wasn’t hit more than six times on each hand. It was strange when we had a new person start school who couldn’t speak English very well.

Did you know it wasn’t seen as acceptable to speak anything other than English on the street? All shop signs had to be in English.

We didn’t have calculators, mobile phones, games machines like Wii and Nintendo. There were no desktop computers, video recorders, CD players, or video cameras. Plastics weren’t common and, in the 50s, plastic usually meant Bakelite (a hard plastics used in electrical goods). Toys tended to be wood or metal and, for boys, a train set was one of the most popular toys. I had a wind up tinplate train set and didn’t get my first electric one until 1964/.

With all of this, would I like to go back to those days to live? Absolutely not! I might like to go back and visit the 1950s but I love what we have now. I can sit at home and Skype with a class in California. I can visit blogs of classes around the world. I have translation software so I can write to people who speak other languages. If I go out for a meal in my small town, I have a choice of international foods.

Do you wonder what Australia might be like 50 years from now? It isn’t likely I’ll be around then as, if I were, I’d be 107 years old but, all of you might be grandparents or even great grandparents explaining to your grandchildren what life was like at the beginning of the century.

I wonder if they would laugh at your old fashioned Wii games machine or iPad3 or iPod or bluray disks?

@RossMannell

Teacher, NSW, Australia

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Hello Class 3,

This is a wonderful topic. Here is what I did for Easter when I was your age and living in Sydney, Australia.

At Sunday School, I was taught of the significance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We learnt of the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection. We were taught of his sacrifice to save us from sin. At church, we had Easter services to remember the importance of Easter.

For some of my friends, they didn’t attend church. Easter for them meant getting chocolate eggs to eat on Sunday. Other friends believed in Easter and had services but didn’t believe in Easter eggs, as they didn’t think this was really part of Easter but something from before Jesus.

For me, at that time, I liked the chocolate and didn’t worry about whether the Easter Bunny had left the eggs or I bought one from a shop. I always enjoyed an Easter egg hunt and loved it when I sometimes found a chocolate Easter bunny.

Easter also meant something else very popular with families in New South Wales, Australia. It was the time of the Sydney Royal Agricultural Easter Show. There would be rides, sideshows, Easter sample bags, events in the main arena, animal judging, produce displays and industrial displays.

I most liked the show bags. Different companies would have sample bags. My favourites included Cadbury chocolates and Lifesavers. At that time, they cost 2 shillings. That’s 10p for you. When my dad was a boy, they were given away for free. Now they cost much more anything from $2 (£1) to $25 (£12.50).

As a teacher, I have had children whose families came from many parts of the world. Easter is a Christian belief but families from other religions respected it because they knew about its significance to Christians. They would join in with the Easter fun at schools but not any religious services.

In schools, Easter was a time for the Easter Hat Parade. Some schools had the children make them at home while other schools made them in class, older children helping younger children. Almost all children joined in regardless of their religion because they saw it as fun. The only exceptions were normally our Jehovah’s Witness children because they believed such celebrations were wrong. They were able to take part in other non-Easter activities.

(The children in this photo are now adults. I have blanked their faces out.)

Before the schools broke up for the Easter period, Christian children would take part in Easter services while other children had other activities. The final day of school before Easter was the time for the Easter Hat Parade. It was great fun.

Isn’t it amazing how there are so many different beliefs in the world but all children can join together and have fun. Our International Days were times when we would share the beliefs of others. I loved learning about the beliefs of others and taking part in their celebrations, whether they were Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or others. We have an amazing world and Easter is part of it.

Today, I still know the significance of Easter and enjoy the chocolate eggs.

@RossMannell
Teacher, NSW, Australia

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The first two pictures show the family farm before the last of the cows were moved to my cousin’s new farm. The remaining photos are of the farm in late 2010 without cows and before the final hand over to the new owners. Between the time of the sale and the hand over, rain had fallen and grass had grown long without cows to keep it low. The farm has now been turned over to beef cattle. They require less water. My cousin’s new farm has access to irrigation and has greater protection from future drought.

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