Dim's Write Stuff

Playground pastimes in those informative primary school years tend to cement some of the most endearing and enduring memories of our time spent in school. These days it’s handball and (insert grimace) looming. I myself was more of a marbles and knucklebones kind of girl and can remember sacrificing lunch to compete in crucial playoffs and tournaments. Ah, the salad days of youth…What a party is was. Fortunately for me, I still get invited to the odd party and today I am delighted to be part of Robert Vescio’s Launch Party for his new early reader chapter book, Hopscotch Showdown .  Robert Vescio is perhaps best known for his picture books, No Matter Who We’re With and Marlo Can Fly but is a regular contributor to the children’s book scene and multi-competition winner, resulting in an admirable affiliation with Jelli-Beanz Publishing. His original Hopscotch Showdown short story was in the Jelli-Beanz Publishing Packed Lunch Volume 1 anthology for kids in 2011. K...

Q. What is as big as a mini iPad, more full of ideas than Paul Jennings and doesn't involve looming (of the rubber band type)? A. Awesome Aussie Things to do with Mum . Being a mum pretty much outstrips all other occupations for me. In spite of the startling similarities it shares to being a writer: negligible pay, crippling self-doubt and reoccurring frustration, the ecstasy received from ones own child is unrivalled. I wouldn't swap that feeling for all the stars and moons combined and neither would my Miss 8. Well, maybe she'd short-loan me for a few thousand looms. So in this age of screen-addicted, attention-deficient youngsters, books like these are worth their weight in mini-iPads. Awesome Aussie Things to do with Mum by Ed Allen and Simon Williams, is quietly sensational from this X-generation mum's point of view. Things I like: Nifty, no-nonsense hard-cover, compact size. It's an activities book disguised as favourite fiction. Groovy layout ...