Be like a bird ... outstretch your wings.

 

Begin the journey of learning something new!

 

🕊️ Just fly 🕊️...

 

as you never know where your wings will take you!!

 

~ Paula St L 2022 🌻

 

 

"I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in."

 

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

 

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆🌀⋆｡°⭒˚𖦹｡⋆

 

 

Paula's Reading Nook for 2025!

January: Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion - By Kay Milton

February: The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker's Reflections - By George Nakashima

March: Chinese Flower Painting Techniques - By Stephen Cassettari

April: Care of Australian Wildlife: For Gardeners, Landholders and Wildlife Carers - By Erna Walraven

May: Hush - By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

June: The Far Reaches of Human Nature - By Abraham H. Maslow

July: Folk Witchcraft: A Guide to Lore, Land, and the Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner - By Roger J. Horne

August: Emma Kunz: Artist, Researcher, Healer (Monograph) - By Anton C. Meier et al.

September: The Secret Lives of Colour - By Cassie St Clair

October: The Space Between Our Ears: How the Brain Represents Visual Space - By Michael J. Morgan

November: Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaviour - By David R. Hawkins

December: What's Your Grief Lists to Help You Through Any Loss - By Eleanor Haley and Litsa Williams

 

Children's Bookshelf for 2025!

January: I Am Odd I Am New - By Benjamin Giroux

February: The Lost Girl - By Ambelin Kwaymullina

March: Creative Crafts: Practical Techniques for all Junior Craftspeople - By Moira Butterfield

April: Magic Beach - by Alison Lester

May: How the Birds got their Colours: An Aboriginal Story - by Mary Albert

June: Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside You - by Wallace J. Nichols and Wallace Grayce Nichols

July: The Cats' Pawbook - by Katie and Sam Carey

August: The Great Big Book of Feelings - by Mary Hoffman

September: Thank you Rain - by Sally Morgan

October: The River - by Sally Morgan

November: Make Meatballs Sing: The Life and Art of Sister Corita Kent - by Matthew Burgess

December: Oh, The Places You'll Go - By Dr. Seuss

 

Try your local library for a copy. 

If the book is not available, request an inter-library loan or suggest a purchase!

Best wishes, Paula 🌻

 

 

May 2026 

How Flowers Made Our World

The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries

By David George Haskell

Published 2026

Check out this link to learn a little more about David.

Find out more about the book here.

 

An excerpt from the book (Chapter entitled Rose):

"On the May roses in the museum's garden near Grasse, honeybees dive into the bowls of petals and run frenzied circles, rummaging through the central mop of pollen-bearing anthers. With swift strokes of all six legs, they ball the pollen into baskets on their hind legs, food for hungry larvae back in the hive. As they move, the bees oil themselves in aroma, the ultimate rose-petal bath.

 

The upper surfaces of rose petals are entirely paved with conical cells swollen with oily aromatic volatiles and pink pigment. Cells on the lower petal surfaces, too, are loaded with scented oils. The volatiles pass right through the cell membranes and out into the air. Every petal cell is a living aroma diffuser.

 

Bees sense rose volatiles through hundreds of minute hairs that fur each antenna, along with odor-sensitive pits between the hairs. Scrabbling through a flower must be an intense aromatic thrill for the bees, every sensor slathered. The experience feeds the honeybees' astonishing skills of aromatic discrimination and memory. They can tell the difference between hundreds of floral scent variants and learn to associate nectar with aroma after a single visit to a flower. They remember especially rewarding aromas for the rest of their six-week-long lives." (pp. 139-140) 

🐝🌀🌹🌀💐

Happy World Bee 🐝 Day!

 

Updated 20-05-2026

 📚  Children's Bookshelf!  📚 

 

MAY 2026 

The Peasant Prince

The True Story of Mao's Last Dancer

By Li Cunxin

Published 2007

 Watch and listen to the story here. 

Check out this link to find out more about this remarkable and hauntingly beautiful illustrated children's book that is based on Li Cunxin's extraordinary life.

Learn more about the author (and dancer) Li Cunxin here (and here), and the illustrator Anne Spudvilas here. Spudvilas' illustration of a Prince process is incredibly inspiring!

There is an interesting page at the end of the book about what China was like in the 1960's when Li's story began.

 

Below is an excerpt from this inspirational book:

"Some time ago, in a remote village in northern China, a small peasant boy lived with his parents

and six brothers in a tiny brick house. They were very poor.

On the bleak farming lands around his village, the boy would often fly a homemade kite.

It was a gift from his beloved father.

That small boy was me, and my story begins with that kite.

On one bitterly cold day, near our home in Qingdao,

I tied some 'paper wishes' to my kite and my father helped me fly it up into the sky.

The kite soared like a bird and my hopes and wishes went with it.

Then he sat down beside me, as he always did, and told me a story.

I loved all his stories but my favourite one was this...

'Once upon a time, a little frog lived in a deep, dark well.

It was his only home.

One day, he met a frog from the world above, 'Come down and play with me!' begged the frog in the well.

The frog from the world above laughed.

'My world up here is much bigger!'

The frog in the well was very annoyed, so he told his father what he'd heard.

'My son,' his father said with a sad heart, 'I have heard there is a bigger and better world up there.

But our life is here, in the well. There is no way we can get out.'

'I want to see what is out there!' cried the little frog. But even though he jumped and hopped, the well was just too deep.

'It is no use, my son,' said his father.

'I have tried all my life to get out.'

Still, the little frog kept on trying to escape from that deep, dark well...'"

                           

🪁🐸🩰 

Updated 24-05-2026