Talented local childrens authors

by Roman Kulkewycz
Books bring tremendous benefits to children who are in the early stages of developing their reading skills.
Illustrations shown alongside text offer invaluable tools to help kids build understanding, fluency, vocabulary and other foundational literacy skills. The imagery in a picture book brings the pages to life, serving as a visual road map for the story.
Recently I met for coffee with four local children's book authors - Lynne Brady, Davina Veenstra, Karen Thomson and Jenny Canty - who have each published high-quality, beautifully illustrated books.
These books will capture the creative imagination of children and give much pleasure to those who read them or have the books read to them by an adult.
"Hang Up Your Hat" by Lynne Brady
Published in 2016, Lynne Brady's book "Hang Up Your Hat" is based on a game that she played almost daily with the children at preschool.
A retired preschool teacher from Garfield, she used it to develop rich language and an awareness of rhyming.
Having read a few thousand books to children over the years, Lynne understood the value of rhyme, rhythm, repetition and humour in engaging children.
By the end of each year, the children would become so good at this game that they would make up rhymes to tell her!
Lynne has read this book to children from prep to grade six.
"They all get something different from it," she said. "With the younger ones, I encouraged them to play around with words that rhymed. With older children, I asked them to write their own rhymes."
Lynne also told children the story of how she came to write it. Her favourite part was when she said "I drew all of the pictures in the book while sitting in the lounge room watching TV, using a set of coloured pencils. It was like a 'you could do it, too' moment."
Order a signed copy by contacting Lynne on 5629 2771.
"Henry the Bunyip" books by
Davina Veenstra
Drouin author Davina Veenstra has created the loveable storybook character "Henry the Bunyip", who has featured in two books - "Henry the Bunyips A-Z of Friends" (2022) and "Henry's Second Book" (2024).
"Henry the Bunyip" was inspired by Davina's desire to give Bunyip a most lovable Bunyip, not like the scary ones on the web.
"Writing a book takes time, but once it's written, the steps to publishing it take up a lot of time as well," Davina said. "Children like Henry's stories. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles like to read these stories to their children."
She has visited schools and kindergartens to read stories to children of various ages.
Davina is planning to continue writing more Henry the Bunyip books.
"I have another book in the pipeline that I will have published one day. It's called 'Love Always Henry', a collection of stories".
Order signed copies by contacting Davina on 0420 372 998.
"The Tyrants of Tynong" by
Karen Thomson
Now based in Garfield, and formerly of Tynong and Cora Lyn, author Karen Thomson said she had always wanted to publish a book.
Achieving that in 2020, her book "The Tyrants of Tynong" is aimed at children aged five to 10.
"This one was for my kids, with our animals as the characters," she said. "The idea just grew, I used places in Tynong that friends lived at and changed names slightly. My illustrator came out and took photos so that the places I wrote about were drawn correctly."
Karen said the book took a week to write and a year to polish, edit and get ready to publish.
Karen is planning another four children's book using her animals as characters and would also like to publish a fiction book, having recorded ideas for many years.
Signed copies of "The Tyrants of Tynong" are available at the Tynong Post Office or direct from Karen on 9408 402 446.
"Number One Baby Dragon" by Jenny Canty
The idea for the children's story "Number One Baby Dragon" came to Pakenham East-based author Jenny Canty while she was attending a writing workshop week in Northern France.
A box of toys tipped out onto the floor and out tumbled a baby dragon, giving her the inspiration to write the book.
She started to write the book in 2017 and it was published in 2021. "Number One Baby Dragon" is suited to children aged three to seven years.
Jenny has other books in the draft stage and has nearly completed a sequel to "Number One Baby Dragon".
Signed copies of "Number One Baby Dragon" can be purchased by contacting Jenny on 0467 000 870.