MULDOON: Hi, I'm Rhys.
PM: G'day, I'm Kevin, I'm from Queensland and I'm his co-author.
MULDOON: Indeed.
PM: The book is called Jasper & Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle, so hopefully we encourage a little bit of interest on the part of our littlest Australians in our nation's big day.
Well, first of all, I thought it was stark, raving mad, but after a little while I came around because I thought writing a kids book for littlies could be a lot of fun.
So the money from the book goes to the Centre for Community Child Health, which is part of the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, a fantastic centre with a big focus on language and literacy development for littlies, so there's a neat synergy. What we're trying to do is encourage, obviously, reading, but also to provide some funds through the proceeds of the sales to the great research work which is being done there.
MULDOON: So, can I ask you a question, just like an off-the-cuff one, while we're here?
PM: No.
MULDOON: I just think, because the way that I first got into reading as kid, my dad was, he would buy by the kilo with books, like just giant, giant piles of them, and I would probably read maybe three out of ten, but he just kept it up and that's how sort of I initially got into reading.
PM: My mother encouraged me to read as a kid. So I got the usual round of Enid Blyton books.
MULDOON: Oh yeah, absolutely. Magical Faraway Tree? Gold.
PM: All that sort of stuff. A bit of Noddy, a bit of Big Ears. I remember flying overseas years and years and years ago with Jessica, and she was about 18 months, 2 years old, and I read her a little story called Peepo!
MULDOON: Oh yeah! Love Peepo! That's gold.
PM: 'Here's the little baby, one, two three, sits on his father's knee, what does he see? Peepo!' And between, where we were living at the time, which was Beijing, and arriving wherever we were going, which I think was London, I think I read it 164 times.
MULDOON: Oh yeah.
PM: So most of the pictures, most of the images and most of the words are still with me. Each time you'd get to the end, she'd turn around to you with her big, brown eyes and say 'Again?'
MULDOON: Yes, exactly! I think I'm bringing up the same child with the same book, because we always go, there's always about, I have to read about five and seven books every night, you know, and she'll pick which one and they are always Peepo! is absolutely right up there. They're beautiful illustrations in that one, too, but obviously, now, our book's a bit of a hit with Lottie, just quietly.
PM: I'm getting a sense of the fun and the rhythm of the story, which might appeal, might appeal, to this audience of little ones who we hope enjoy stories about these two cute and cuddly animals.
Carla's done a fantastic job in capturing their appearance, but also their nature. I'd like to see, through this book, this encouraging littlies to read and to learn to love reading because if they get their literacy right early through a love of reading, frankly, so many of life's barriers come tumbling down.