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Addi Road to debut first children’s book

CAN children change the world through what they learn from a tree?

The team at Addison Road Community Centre Organisation believes so, creating their first children’s book, ‘The Hollow Tree’.
Supported by an Inner West Council Environment Grant, ‘The Hollow’ Tree tells the story of a single tree, inspired by an old Sydney Blue Gum at Addi Rod, and the living creatures who come to depend upon it as a home.
Addi Road writer Mark Mordue said: “It’s a story about community in the broadest and deepest sense, the community we are a part of in the natural world.
“It’s a story, too, about nature in the city and how we can protect and sustain it and how it helps us in return.
“The tree shares its secrets and how it relates to friends who live in and around it, the varying bird-life and fauna who need it to survive. And the many planes that swoop overhead!”
The book is beautifully illustrated by students from Dulwich Hill Public, Ferncourt Public, Marrickville West Public, Taverners Hill Infants School and Willkins Public School, who visited the grounds of the Addi Road to study a ‘habitat tree’.


“Art teacher and creative director Robyn Chiles collected the children’s drawings of birds, microbats, lizards, leaves and feathers, building up a storyboard that could constitute a book,” Mark said.
“Designer Jeremy Nicholson took this to another level and Patricia Kenny assembled an information section and a set of exercises for readers, parents and teachers to encourage further engagement.”
With the first print run sold out, further stocks are now available of the ‘The Hollow Tree’ which will be launched on Friday, July 26, at 6pm at Leichhardt Berkelouw Books.