Title: Grandpa Green
Author: Lane Smith
Illustrator: Lane Smith
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
ISBN: 9781596436077

Themes: Family, memory, love, creativity, remembering, story, history

Grandpa was a sailor, a husband, a gardener, a soldier and an artist…

My favourite book of 2011, Grandpa Green is a whimsical beauty, an awe inspiring treasure, a joyful surprise… you get the drift. I’ve already purchased 6 copies of this book because I continue to give it out as gifts to friends & family.

Grandpa Green is a perfect example as to the beauty of the picture book, it’s use of colour and images that flow from one page to another seamlessly, a simple take told well, visually stunning and touching.

And that it came from Lane Smith, who is possibly better known for his more comical side I think has helped it surprise us all (in a very nice way), after all, it’s not that often that such a touching, inspiring and poignant book is released. When I opened it I was expecting to giggle a bit, laugh at Lane’s wit and humourous tale, instead I found a multi-layered, emotionally charged, simple, haunting and beautiful piece of art, and I had to sit and sigh as the story made a space in my soul.

Read this tale over and over again, you’ll hear voices of the past, imagine tales of days gone by, allow the young boy to introduce you to his grandfather whom he loves dearly and his garden that holds the memories of years past.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Title: Button Boy
Author: Sue deGennaro
Illustrator: Sue deGennaro
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 9781741697971

Themes: collecting, being different, searching, generosity, helping others, being special, finding friends, looking

Button boy made me smile, a big grin from ear to ear… Such a beautiful story by Rebecca Young of a boy who always has his eyes open for something that others may have lost, who finds specialness and joy in small wonders, and how sometimes this search opened up other discoveries of wonder.

Beautifully and elegantly illustrated by the whimsical and talented Sue deGennaro the story of Banjo, the young boy who loves to collect buttons will have you checking your own jumpers and jackets for lost buttons and perhaps will inspire you to keep your eyes open for lost buttons on your travels just waiting to be reunited with it’s owner.

The repetition within the story will help you enter Banjos world of lost buttons, wonder, joy and friends yet to have been met.

Keep your eyes open, you never know what you may find…

Title: The Little Old Man Who Looked Up At The Moon
Author: Pamela Allen
Illustrator: Pamela Allen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670075812

Themes: meaning of life, wisdom, questions, wonder, worry, journey, nonsense

Pamela Allen writes what I like to call Australian postmodern parables. It’s not unusual to, upon completing a Pamela Allen story to find a puzzled look on ones face followed by an inquisitive sigh as one rolls their eyes towards the sky…

But that’s what makes them oh so good, it’s the surprising, unlikely and odd journey her stories take you, from wondering if a mouse really sunk a boat to where on earth was the treasure buried…

This tale of the Little Old Man and his inquisitive and understanding wife is another feather in Pamela’s cap. A wonderful adventure spurred on by a seemingly impossible mission to discover the meaning of life from the large and wise animals of the region.

I don’t want to spoil the ending of the story, but in true Pamela Allen style it’ll have you chuckling in puzzlement and awe quickly followed by that characteristic rolling of the eyes…

Enchanting and beautifully illustrated as always this is classic Pamela Allen in fine form…

Title: The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog
Author: Sue deGennaro
Illustrator: Sue deGennaro
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 9781742830636

Themes: friendship, imagination, differences, arguments, communication, personality, saying sorry

Sue deGennaro has burst onto the picture book scene with some enchanting, creative and beautifully designed pieces of art and delightfully dreamy stories. The Pros and Cons is her first solo release as author/illustrator.

This is the story of two young friends trying to find the right animal, which isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially when one of them speaks mostly in numbers and the other is a little quirky.

If you were to be an animal what animal would you be?

And what makes up a good friend and how do you work through your differences and arguments? Perhaps you need to read through the pro & cons of being a frog to help you figure it out.

Title: If I Could Paint The World
Author: Sarah Massini
Illustrator: Sarah Massini
Publisher: Gullane Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781862338043

Themes: creation, colour, art, creativity, transformation, imagination

Sarah Massini brings us the beautifully illustrated and creative musings of a young artist who ponders what the world would look like I she was the one to colour it.

What colour would you have painted the sky? What about the grass? Or perhaps the food you eat for breakfast?

Simple and engaging the story will have you imagining a world where everything is your favorite colour and leave you being amazed at the creativity and colour that surrounds us each and every day.

Title: Stuck
Author: Oliver Jeffers
Illustrator: Oliver Jeffers
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780007263868

Themes: problem solving, stuck, humour, trouble, determination, creativity, inventiveness

Oliver Jeffers has created a simple, creative, laugh-out-loud and ridiculous story about a young boy who meets a problem face up and who just won’t give up on trying to solve it.

Join Floyd on his hilarious adventure while he causes the community a mild case of trauma and upheaval while he tries to get his kite back.

Brilliant and simple with illustrations that are true to form for Oliver (simple, quirky & colourful) you’ll love reading the story to everyone and anyone…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Title: Prudence Wants a Pet
Author: Cathleen Daly
Illustrator: Stephen Michael King
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 9781741699654

Themes: Pets, family, imagination, responsibilities, friendship

Stephen Michael King partners up with Cathleen Daly to create this simple, beautiful, quirky tale of a little girl with a big imagination who, more than anything in the world wants a pet and her family who aren’t so sure…

So what happens when Prudence gets a pet, names it “Branch” & it follows her everywhere?

Beautifully illustrated and designed, Stephen Michael King brings this young girl and her multiple pets to life, one by one you’ll fall in love with her pets, you’ll laugh at their antics and in the end you’ll melt…

Cathleen and Stephen make a great partnership & this makes for a creative and beautiful book, tie a string to it and take it everywhere with you…

Title: The Huey’s In “The New Jumper”
Author: Oliver Jeffers
Illustrator: Oliver Jeffers
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780007420650

Themes: Difference, community, individualism, change, fads, popularity, friendship

The thing about the Hueys… was that they were all the same.

One thing is for sure – Oliver Jeffers understands the picture book, and the picture book understands him. If one were to judge books by their covers you’d be walking straight past his collection, & for all intensive purposes you’d be forgiven after all his illustrations look like they’ve been drawn by a preschooler…

But if you were to pick that book up and open that cover you’ll be in for a great surprise, because he’s an absolute genius.

The Hueys is a new series of books to come from Oliver, the first of which “The New Jumper” is as simple as it is brilliant.
Follow the story of a Huey who isn’t exactly like everyone else, and whose differences cause a bit of community chaos when he decides to knit himself a new jumper.

What follows is an amusing short tale of a community who’s not too keen on change, and not that enthusiastic about being different either.

After all, its (just) a jumper… what change can a simple jumper bring?

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’d like to invite you to think a bit harder this Christmas.

It seems to me that there’s a part of the story of Jesus’ birth that we seldom dwell on, and we’d like to help your community enter into it.

If you’re willing.

A few weeks ago I participated in a conversation that gave rise to the thought that when Herod ordered the mass killing of the boy’s under two Mary, Joseph and Jesus wouldn’t have been the only family who tried to escape the genocide. They couldn’t have been the only ones who got word and tried to get out of town as fast as they could, parents, mothers, fathers and children, many of them would have grabbed what they could and have tried to make it as far out of the reach of Herod as they could.  The thought that there’d be this kind of event without such a response is ludicrous, what would you have done?

The image of a sea of donkeys, all carrying mothers with children came to mind, all of them escaping to Egypt or beyond… anywhere they could to escape this evil act.  And I wondered how the leaders of Egypt would have reacted to such a surge of refugees, all seeking to escape an evil leader who was killing their children in a jealous fit of rage.

Would they have responded in a similar way to our political leaders who seem to have a unnatural fear of boats carrying asylum seekers onto our shore (remember this?)?

Or, would they have responded differently and opened their arms?

And if they responded similarly what would their political catch phrase be?

What about “Stop The Donkeys”?

And another question to throw into the mix, who are we in the story? Are we parents fleeing for the life of our children, are we the children, are we the soldiers following orders, are we community members who help sneak the children out of town and hide them from the evil that is seeking them out, or are we people of Egypt? And if we’re people in Egypt are we welcoming or refusing the acceptance of these families seeking our hospitality?

What we’ve created is a list of resources that we hope will grow over the coming weeks to help your congregations enter out of Advent and into Epiphany and to delve into this question.  You’ll find that there is definitely a political lean here, but one that comes to us out of a biblical narrative that is at the heart of who we are as people of faith which tells us that after Jesus was born Herod ordered the killing of all the male children under two and that Mary and Joseph were warned to get out with the baby and escape to egypt where they lived for many years.

This idea is here for you to poach, steal, use, borrow…

And we’d love to invite you to add to the resources if you’re able, just shoot me an email.

Images:

Here are a few images that you can use over advent, have them pop up around the space and build some anticipation around the community, buy some stickers and put them on cars, capture people’s imagination.  One worship idea is to create a sea of donkeys with messages of hospitality to those who seek our generosity and love, or perhaps your community would like to create a sea of donkeys outside your church and invite your community to write letters to our government? Imagine your local member’s face when they receive 100 donkeys in the post…

Let us know what you choose to do with the images…

• No Donkeys Allowed: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Stop The Donkeys 01: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Stop The Donkeys 02: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Age at MorePraxis has created his own image and sticker: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Flight to Egypt by He Qi: Flight to Egypt

Narratives / Reflections:

Here are a couple of reflections to help you enter into the story of the flight to Egypt, once again feel free to use, rewrite, bounce off of or add to these if you’d like.

• RefuJesus, the babe that sought safety from a king that wanted him dead. (download as pdf file)
• What If? (download as pdf)

Liturgical Resources:

• Poem: Mary’s Question by Alan Stanford
• Poem: Somebody Stole My Christmas (pdf file)
• Liturgy: God Became Human (pdf file)
• Liturgy: The Down Side of Christmas (pdf file)
• Call To Worship: Christmas Letter 2002 (pdf file)
• Poem The Flight To Egypt by Godfrey Rust (pdf file)
• Poem “Herod’s Last Request” by Godfrey Rust
• Prayer And the Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulder (by Roddy Hamilton)

Commentary:

• Commentary: Let Them All Come by FirstDog
• Commentary: Leunig – If I Were a Refugee
• Commentary: Border worship has produced an inhumane people trade by Elenie Poulos 

Resources Exploring Refugee Issues:

• NCCA Resource – Me As A Refugee (this is a great resource for helping people to put themselves in the shoes of refugees)
• The Heart of a Stranger – Ben Thurley (pdf file, thanks to Ben Thurley and TEAR Australia for allowing us to use this)
• NCCA What is a Refugee?
• Refugee Council Advocacy Kit
• Australian Catholic Migrant & Refugee Centre Refugee Kits

Two of our wedding presents were tagines… yes, we were given two tagines, one was a traditional clay tagine, the other a Microstoven tagine. At first we both thought “what the bugger will we do with TWO tagines”!? And, after last night, I can tell you what we’re gonna do.

We’re gonna cook a lot of Moroccan food!

Yesterday I cooked Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios, the recipe we got from the book “Tagines & Couscous” by Ghillie Basan (Author), Martin Brigdale (Photographer), Peter Cassidy (Photographer). It’s a book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone, I have a sneaking suspicion that a number of the Lamb dishes would have traditionally been Goat dishes, (they say to use a lean cut of lamb which is unusual for slow cooking) so it’s on my list of priorities to give them a go with goat soon.

The Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios kicked off by cooking a couple of onions in a frying pan with some ghee and some cinnamon, ginger and tumeric before browning off the lamb, adding some water to cover and then pouring into the heated tagine in the oven. I left it in the oven for about 2.5 hours overall on 150 degrees, stopping about 1.5 hours in to add dates and a fair whack of honey and leaving it in for a while longer. I finished it all off by reducing the liquid on a higher heat for a bit and then served with a lemon and butter couscous.

Can I say…

YUM

Tonight I’m planning on cooking up another onion with a small selection of the spices and a few dates in order to help warm up the dish again…

Found the recipe on the Food For Thought Blog if you want to give it a go.

A couple of tips re using clay Tagines:

a) Make sure you know the instructions as to how to use the tagine, every clay tagine is different and should come with easy to follow instructions.

b) Season your tagine properly. I followed the tagine’s instructions which was to soak in water for an hour or so before taking out and allowing to air dry for a while. After which I placed in a cold oven and brought it up to 150 degrees and allowed it to sit for ten minutes. I then applied a generous amount of rice oil to the inside the tagine and allowed it to sit in the oven for another hour before allowing it to cool allllllll the way down.

c) Soak the tagine for a couple of hours before cooking in it. A lot of people suggest soaking it for 24 hours, but seriously my tagine had stopped soaking water into it within the hour.

Here’s my end result (it looks a LOT like the recipe in the book!)