From Avis – I grew up on a Mallee farm in Victoria, Australia, as the third eldest of ten children. I left school at fourteen to help my mother. One of my jobs was to put the youngest children to bed, and that’s when my storytelling began.

I think the seed was sown when our mother bought 100 day-old chickens that arrived by train at the Woomelang railway station. A special coop was built for them, with a small kerosene heater in the middle. I loved watching and feeding these little fluffy chickens as they ran around and listening to their happy chatter.

I never wrote the stories down; they just seemed to flow naturally, and my younger siblings loved them. Later, when I had my own children, the stories returned, and they loved them too. When my grandchildren arrived, the stories began again, and they adored them as well.

About 30 years ago, I decided to write a few of the stories down. It was harder than rattling them off the top of my head. Over my lifetime (85 years), I must have told hundreds of stories about the three Chickadee chickens.

One thing I always ensured was that the stories had a happy ending. To anyone reading this, I hope these stories bring your children or grandchildren as much joy as they have brought to my family. 

From Trent – This has been a very personal project for me, I always remembered the little chickadee chalk stories whenever I would go over to my grandma’s house. Originally, in the 90s, my father was going to illustrate and try and get the stories published. However he would pass away before he was able. I was only 15 when he passed. It wasn’t until much later the memory of chickadee chalk and my fathers plans popped into my head. Thankfully its far easier these days to publish books, so after digging up the stories that grandma had written down 30 years ago, I began Illustrating them and turning them into books.