Stage adaption of...

      The Children's Book Council of Australia

Shortlisted "2012 Younger Reader's Book of the Year"

Bungawitta

By Emily Rodda Text © 2011 Emily Rodda, Illustrations © 2011 Craig Smith, Adapted from BUNGAWITTA by Emily Rodda & illustrated by Craig Smith, published by Scholastic Australia

Adapted and directed by "Tony Bones" Appleby B.Ed for Tony Bones Entertainment

Music by Tony Appleby B.Ed, Luke Hunter Dip.Ed & Tim Smith Dip.Ed

Cost: $8.25 per student (incl. GST)

Minimum show fee: $825 (incl. GST)

Year levels: Grade 3 - Year 8

Duration: 50 minutes + question time

Key Learning Areas: Drama, Dance, Music, SOSE, English

Book Week: 18th - 24th August 2012

National Literacy Week: 27th August - 2nd September, 2012

The CBCA Book Week Theme for 2012 is...

"Champions Read"

About the book:

“It's crunch time in Bungawitta. The land's as dry as a dead galah, there's no rain in sight, and only twelve people left in town. Nobody can make it rain. But a shower of money would help keep Bungawitta alive. And a festival would attract city tourists with money to spend, Jay's sure of it. But can twelve people, two dogs and a Shetland pony put on a proper festival?”

About the play:

The book will come to life with original music, song & dance, thrilling drama, puppetry and comedy.

• Audience encouraged to interact and participate.

• 2 original songs

• Clever costume characters.

• Different dramatic genre covered throughout the show including: puppetry, narrative, music theatre, pantomime, slow motion scene, dance class and game show.

• Curriculum linked with lesson plans.

Captivate your students’ imaginations by booking a performance on your day of choice today.

All equipment and materials supplied including:

• a low portable stage
• full sound system (suitable for up to 400 students)
• stage lighting
• free standing back drop curtain & set.

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Teaching notes:

Teachers notes: http://www.scholastic.com.au/schools/education/teacherresources/assets/pdfs/BungawittaTeachersNotes.pdf

Buy the book:

Readings

Dymocks

Fishpond

QBD

Better Read

Book Week is an initiative of CBCA - The Children's Book Council of Australia.  To visit their website, click on the image below.

Each year, many schools and public libraries from all over Australia spend a week celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians develop activities, offer competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading.

The Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year short list will be released on Tuesday April 12th, 2012.  The full short list can be viewed on the CBCA website.  Winners will be announced on Friday August 19th, 2012.

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Reviews for the book:

"It hasn’t rained in Bungawitta in a very long time. So long, in fact, that the youngest person in town has only ever seen rain on TV. The animals have all left, the fields are dry, and one by one the people are leaving Bungawitta too. With only twelve people left in town, there’s not much else to do besides check the weather report, which never predicts rain.

But Bungawitta’s second youngest resident Jay decides he’s not just going to sit around staring at the dust – he’s going to do something about it. Bungawitta is also sorely lacking money, and since that’s easier to come by than rain, the locals hit on the idea to host an Earth Sculpture Festival. But Jay can’t help feeling unsure - once the bottled water has been put on ice, the portable toilets have been set up and the tea-cosies knitted, will anyone even show up? Or will this festival spell the end of Bungawitta?

This stand-alone junior reader from the phenomenally successful author of the Deltora Quest, Rowan of Rin and Rondo series is a real treat. You’ll laugh out loud at some of the antics of the Bungawitta locals, and fret along with them when things don’t go exactly as planned.

Bungawitta is a charming, heart-warming glimpse into what it’s like to live in a drought-affected area, and just exactly how much change one good idea can bring about. So make sure you pay a visit to Bungawitta, and don’t forget to pick up a tea-cosy!" Holly Harper, children's book specialist, Readings

"Had Bungawitta been published 12 or 18 months ago. when stories of the drought featured regularly in the Australian media, it may have been pigeon-holed as merely a ‘drought book’. But it is about so much more than that. Bungawitta is a small town in outback Australia where it hasn’t rained in seven years. The townspeople have dwindled, the services are decreasing and nobody appears to work at all as there isn’t much to do—except watch the weather forecast each night on the TV. The people wait and wait for the weather man to put a cloud above Bungawitta, but he never does. So one day they decide they have to make a plan to save their town. A festival is devised and each person has a job to do to get ready—even the youngest, Glory-Alice. This is a story about great ideas and the importance of working together, as Rodda demonstrates that everyone in the town—from the youngest to the oldest—is of value and has something to offer. The author of the popular ‘Deltora Quest’ and ‘Rondo’ series has done it again with a captivating tale that shows how good morals and values can guide us out of any problem. Whether or not it rains is completely beside the point! This book is suitable for children aged 5-8. (5 stars)." Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine

"Bungawitta by Emily Rodda - will it be the first title I mention to be part of the 2012 CBCA short list? This is the quintessential Australian yarn. The town of Bungawitta has been ravaged by drought. There are young children who think rain is a myth because they have never seen it in their lifetime. The few remaining inhabitants now gather at the general store each morning to listen to the unchanging weather prediction – fine and sunny. On the day of this story Jay makes a suggestion that will change the course of all their lives, put Bungawitta on the map and give this community the happy ending they deserve.

Each of the twelve people has a skill or a gift. Jay suggests they hold a festival – The Bungawitta Earth Festival, where city folk are invited to come and sculpt the clay that can be made from the dirt around the town when it is mixed with brown water from the post office water tank. Auntie Flo organizes refreshments, souvenirs, chutney and jam, Cookie makes fruit cakes, Socko’s mum organizes a sausage sizzle and pony rides for the kids and so on.

On the day of the festival everyone holds their breath waiting to see if anyone will turn up. “Then the first car came over the hill. It was a bright yellow VW Beetle with four people inside.” It is the promise of the ABC television reporters and camera crew that has bought the city people in their droves but will the television people really come and what is Glory-Alice, the youngest child in town, excited about?

Drought is a harsh reality in Australia. City children can gain an insight into life in a small country community through this easy to read novel Bungawitta but they will also enjoy the humour, friendships and sheer determination of these special people.

Emily Rodda as taken a new direction in her storytelling and with the lively illustrations of Craig Smith I hope you agree this book is a beaut!!" Momo Time to Read

"It was very dry in Bungawitta. It was so dry that Glory-Alice, the youngest person in town, had only seen rain on TV.'

Thus begins this delightful story about a drought-stricken town that decides to do something to bring a bit of life – and some much-needed income – back to their shrinking community. It's Jay, Glory-Alice's brother, who suggests they hold an Earth Sculpture Festival and before he knows it, everybody's doing their best to make it happen. Even old Maisie McDuff, who gets a bit confused sometimes. Then the ABC get involved so everyone's sure it's going to be a success. Isn't it? Can twelve people, two dogs and a Shetland pony really put on a proper festival?

Emily Rodda has a great gift for narrative and in Bungawitta she captures the laconic Australian humour as well as the fortitude and resilience that have saved many a rural area from extinction. Clever, funny, hopeful and kind, yet tinged with that possibility of heartbreak that is the essence of farming in this challenging land and climate, Bungawitta celebrates our rural communities and reminds city readers of the many things we could learn from our 'country cousins'.

Illustrations in novels are often pretty but inconsequential supplements to the narrative - but such is not the case here. Craig Smith's illustrations significantly enrich the story. His line drawings are full of movement and energy, bringing to life the personalities of the main characters and reflecting the determination and commitment of the Bungawitta community once it starts preparing for the festival. The images of the tourist invasion are hilarious, reflecting the 'town visitor' attitude in the plethora of cameras, sunglasses and crowds.

Great fun to read alone or aloud. Highly recommended." NSW Association for Gifted & Talented Children

"The town of Bungawitta has been reduced by drought to a population of 12 people, 2 dogs and a pony. Glory-Alice, who has only ever seen rain on TV, blames the weatherman because he never puts a raincloud over Bungawitta on his map. It's her big brother Jay who comes up with the idea of a festival to bring tourists - and money - to the town, and the Bungawitta Dirt Sculpture Festival is born - and a chance for Glory-Alice to get her own back on the weatherman. It's been a long time between junior novels for Rodda and this one is a gem, replete with twists and turns and the odd secret to add suspense. Smith's comical illustrations capture it all in appropriate shades of dust and pencil grey." Katherine England, The Advertiser

Recommended for: Middle primary

"Wonderful story of an outback town struggling with the drought. Great characters, plenty of funny lines with predictable outcome!" Mrs Child, Good Reads

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About the author: Emily Rodda

Jennifer June Rowe (born 2 April 1948) is an award-winning Australian author. Her crime fiction for adults is published under her own name, while her children's fiction is published under the pseudonym Emily Rodda. She is well known for the children's fantasy series Deltora Quest, Rowan of Rin, Fairy Realm and Teen Power Inc.

Rowe, born in Sydney, Australia, was raised with two younger brothers on Sydney's North Shore. She attended the Abbotsleigh School for Girls, on the upper North Shore of Sydney. She attained her Master of Arts in English Literature at the University of Sydney in 1973. Her first job was assistant editor at Paul Hamlyn publishing. She later worked at Angus and Robertson Publishers where she remained for fourteen years as Editor, Senior Editor, Managing Director, Deputy Publisher and finally Publisher. During this time she began writing children's books under the pseudonym Emily Rodda (her grandmother's name). Her first book, Something Special, was published in 1984 and won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers Award. She has now won that award a record five times.

From 1984 to 1992, Rowe continued her career in publishing, then as Editor of the Australian Women's Weekly, while writing novels in her 'spare time'. In 1994 Rowe became a full-time writer. She now divides her working day between consultancies for book publishers and her own writing. She lives in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia with her husband.

Rowe's acclaimed Verity Birdwood murder mysteries for adults, written under her own name are: Grim Pickings (1988) (made into an Australian TV mini-series), Murder by the Book, Death in Store, The Makeover Murders and Strangehold. Later she also wrote about Homicide Detective Tessa Vance in Suspect ( also published as " Deadline " ) and Something Wicked, and both books were incorporated as episode story lines in the Australian TV-show Murder Call. Rowe also edited a collection of crime stories Love Lies Bleeding and has contributed to the 1997 "Crimes for Summer" collection Moonlight Becomes You.

The most notable of her children's works, authored under the pseudonym Emily Rodda, are the series Deltora Quest, Teen Power Inc. and Rowan of Rin.

Total worldwide sales across all the Deltora Quest series have now exceeded 10 million. It has been published in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, Japan, Italy, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the UK. A Deltora Quest anime series was broadcast on Japanese television in early 2007.

Among her other successful novels is the 1990 science fiction novel Finders Keepers which was made into a television series called The Finder, and the Teen Power Inc. series (re-published as The Raven Hill Mysteries), a mystery series involving six teenagers, both of which are written for young adults.

Her newest books The Key To Rondo and its sequel The Wizard of Rondo are becoming some of her best selling books yet. The Key to Rondo is her 3rd most successful book and the newly published book The Wizard of Rondo is already 6th. Her best selling book/series is the Deltora Quest series

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What do other schools say?

"Fabulous performance! The students loved the characters, the puppetry and the songs! Mrs. Melvino was outrageous. Loved it and will look forward to another production"

St Patrick's Primary School, North Parramatta, NSW

View more testimonials

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Previous book titles performed by Tony Bones Entertainment: