Merrie Moo #author Rosie Schonell

With the clock striking every hour Merrie Moo races all over town.

In and out of every shop she goes, running round and round.

Can you guess what Merrie Moo needs, because she has no clue?

Or will she surprise us all and remember what to do?

An entertaining read-aloud picture book that is perfect for a shared reading experience. Merrie Moo is a fantastic and fun way to introduce the concept of time to young children.

To connect with Rosie ...
https://www.instagram.com/imrosiereads/
https://www.amazon.com.au/Breaking-School-Rules-Rosie-Schonel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's good morning, Rose Marie. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Thanks for having me. Rosemy Chanel, you are back for the second time on Yellow Shelf. And I'm always excited to have an author back. This time your new book is called Mary Moo. Tell us all about this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Well, Mary Moo is a story about a friendly but forgetful cow. And she's lost her shopping list. She goes to town and she has to beat the clock on remembering what she's buying before the sun goes down. So it's a good book for shared reading and reading aloud to a child. It's aimed at probably ages three to six. Um, so it's at that age where they're learning, you know, the rules of reading, basically, I'll call it, which is, you know, the rules of a book. So they have to learn things like, you know, there's the pictures and those squiggly things down the bottom, their words, and they relate to to each other, and those black squiggly things have meaning. And um, you know, so it's just all of and learning left to right, and it's just learning those rules. So it's important that children are exposed to that. So I've written Mary Moo in rhythm and rhyme because I think children um, you know, they're listening and they can learn, it's like a little, you know, that's like music, and they they learn it. So, you know, children want to be read the same book five, six, seven, eight, nine times. Um, so they then can, you know, they can use prediction and they can start to think, oh, I I can read, you know. So it's good for their confidence, um, and it's just good for them learning that reading is fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

And Rosie, you know, the book, the full title is called uh Mary Moo, the cow who forgot what to do. There's adventure in this book, there's humor, there's obviously a talking cow. What is it about cows? Um, I guess I mean, I'm thinking because often they're so visible. They're one of there's a they're a visible animal, certainly when you go beyond the cities. Um, what is it, the fascination with cows?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Well, I think um, you know, children love it when you give an animal human characteristics. Um, they love stories about that. So cows are just, you know, they're friendly, um, you know, they they don't hurt anyone, they're not aggressive, they're not going to attack. Um, they're on a farm, and children love stories on farms. And, you know, they can be a dairy farm, which is Mary Moose on a dairy farm, she's head of the dairy, and you know, they they give milk, so um, and the baby calves, you see them as you're driving through the countryside, and yeah, they're just uh an appealing animal, they're big eyes, so that's why I chose the cow. Um, I I do love elephants as well, but I thought, no, the cow's easy to ride out in Australia. Um, and I've spent time down, you know, the south coast that's started with lots of um dairy farms, so yeah, that's where I got the the idea from to to use my cow, and there's other animals in the story, yes. Um, and so yeah, so that's why I sort of got the idea of the cow.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

And Rosie, you know, you're a seasoned author, you've been on Yellow Shelf before. Is is this gonna be, I was wondering, is this gonna be a book series? Like are there gonna be other animals or is this just a one-off? What's the plan?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Well, I I would like to write a couple more in the Mary Moose series um because I believe that stories um for children at this age, they really teach them something. I mean, you know, with my other middle grade novel, I I was I had a message on that about um, you know, school marks aren't everything. Um, and so it this it actually teaches children the the concept of time. So, you know, like um there's a clock on every page and it's going through the hours. So children are sort of being exposed to that, which is probably the you know the subtle message in this book. Um and yeah, so I would like to use Mary Moo to learn something else that I think is a good thing to teach children, and there, you know, there are lots of things like days of the week and months and things like that that come into their world and they're just learning it through through stories that are fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, yeah. And I I mean, I've spoken to you before, so I know a little bit about your background. I'm gonna put a link into our previous interview in this as well because your previous book we spoke about, it was called Breaking School Rules. Um, tell us a bit about you. Like if we're watching for the first time, tell us about you and your journey as a writer.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Well, um I've been a school teacher. Um, I've I was teaching English and I've basically over the years I've I've gone through like all the grades pretty much. And then I um I was also I did a Master of Special Ed um because I became interested in children um that had learning difficulties uh at school. And so um yeah, so then I got into that, and um literacy has always been my great love. So I got into like, you know, really wanting children to learn to read because that to me is such a crucial skill. It opens doors in the world, and some children, you know, find it more difficult than others to to learn um to read. So yeah, and the a really big thing is just um making children enjoy reading because you know, first of all, they say, you know, in when they're really little they're they're learning to read, and then they get to primary school and they're reading to learn. So and then you just want them to be lifelong readers, basically. Um, you know, and and my I've got adult kids and I really love the fact that you know, whenever they go on holidays, I can see they've always got a book in their bag or they've got their you know their Kindle. So that to me, I think I've I've done it. I I did I I made that. So you don't you don't um just presume that every child's gonna love reading because some children do, but it's it's about modeling, it's about exposing them to books, and it's about teaching them that they're entertaining. Yes, yeah, and then they they will keep you know reading themselves and and then stories in general are great for them. There's audiobooks, they're great. Yeah, but the audiobooks are serving one part of reading, you know, they're learning like phonetic phonetic awareness and stuff like that. Whereas a book, it's learning the rules of reading, the rules of the book, and so children have to be exposed to those things. And yeah, I just am really passionate about kids loving reading.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, well, I rem I remember that from your first interview, your passion and your support for for kids reading, and you know, obviously kids with learning um challenges. I think that's really beautiful. Are you gonna keep writing? What's the plan?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, so I'd like I said I'd like to write some more in the Merry Moo. Um, yeah, like I've got sort of as you see, they've got the family of cows in the background. She's become a real character to talk about. Yeah, yeah. Um, and yeah, and I sometimes think, oh, I I can equate to her because she's losing things and she's that's me, but I can't put my car in the car park. Um, you know, so uh yes, I would. Um I would like to write that. And I'd like to write another one in the Breaking Schools as easy. But I just I just um wanted to try the picture books and avoid that. And it's got lovely, it's got really big illustrations as you can.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Visually stunning, yes, yeah, throughout the whole book.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

And I think kids really relate to to you know, big smiley faces and um big big illustrations. Um, the the the reader can point out things to them.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

So yeah, so that's why yeah, that's do we give your illustrator a shout out?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yes, yes. Her name is Marlena Latz. It's great, yeah. And she's done look, she's you know, it took a lot of chewing and throw throwing, but you can see the beautiful pictures. Um, yeah, so that's how we came up with Mary Moo.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Fabulous. Well, you know, if there's more Mary Moo, I'm gonna definitely want you to come back and share and keep sharing with Yellow Shelf. Thank you. Rosie, thanks so much for joining us. I'll put some links in the show notes to make it easy. I'll put our previous interview in. Um, but I follow you on Instagram. Is that the best space to follow?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

That's right. So I've got um I'm Rosie Reeds, and there's a link on that to you know, um, where you can buy Mary Moo and Braden School C is there, you know, as well. But yeah, so that's that's where we're we're up to. So yes, I'm I'm glad that uh I think um children are falling in love with Mary Moo, um, which is nice. I've had some really good feedback, and um, you know, she as I said, she's got her friends there in the back that are going to feature in the next book.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, well, we want kids to keep reading. I mean, it's that's definitely a passion for mine as well to to expose kids to to reading and opportunities. Rosie, thanks so much for joining us. Keep writing and come back when you're ready.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Thanks so much. Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Cheers.