Dim's Write Stuff

Ever since humans began devising ways to kill cockroaches, odds have not always favoured Earth’s wildlife. Not that many of us regularly regard the indestructible attributes of cockroaches as worth conserving, but our unremitting need to dominate does make it hard for other species to coexist with us on this planet. Couple human habitation with a zillion other influences such as adverse weather conditions, and you have a world of animals struggling to survive. The humble fruit bat or flying fox is one such mammal I’ve noticed on the brink lately. In as many months, for the first time in nearly 17 years, I’ve noticed dead or dying fruit bats on my regular morning walks. Small, perfectly healthy looking creatures lying still and shrunken, dehydrated and emaciated. They seem to be literally falling out of sky, starving because our native flora on which they depend for food is also in crisis mode, tricked into random flowering times or else unable to flower and fruit at all because...

If you're the type to pick a picture book by its cover, you'll find it hard to walk past Under the Same Sky. Its sumptuous velvety blue cover is bedecked with shining rose gold stars in the same glinting foil as the looping title. Stars shoot through the night sky although we don't yet know what they might portend. Once inside we are plunged into the worlds of two young children who despite living on opposite sides of the world share a common wish - to share their lives as friends. It's an immense concept, wanting and waiting for someone when you are so very far away from them. This story about a city-dwelling nameless boy and countryside nameless girl, explores the desire to reduce distance with metaphoric reality. The boy draws on figurative comparison - like the sun and moon...always seeking...the sky and the sea...always apart - in an effort to understand his situation. The longing is always there but so is the separation until realisation dawns and with a ...

Ebony and Jay are best buddies. They live in the same street and share the same unquenchable passion for wildlife welfare. They might as well be related, they spend so much time cycling around their seaside town together, but this exciting new animal-inspired junior series by Aussie animal-lover, Candice Lemon-Scott , works a treat thanks to Ebony and Jay’s casual and comic friendship. Together they roam around on their trusty bicycles always ready to lend a helping hand especially at the local wildlife hospital where their altruistic zeal is utilised in the caring of animals and their environment; they wear the titles of Eco Rangers with pride. Occasionally, though, their curiosity and thirst for adventure lands them in serious trouble and that, for us, is where the fun starts. In book one of the Eco Rangers series, our dynamic duo happen upon an abandoned drum on the beach. Even more alarming, they discover a huge stricken bird covered in oil, a pelican in obvious peril! ...