For those of you that subscribe to this website or the FINIA Facebook page, you may have noticed a few stories for children creeping in? 

John Sinclair, aka ‘Fearless Leader,’ started writing stories with an environmental message for his own grandchildren in 2005.  He wrote over 130 stories, with 50 of these compiled into a book of stories for younger readers.  Five of these stories have been published on the FINIA website:

Wilfie’s War on Woody Weeds – which tells of Wilfie and his Scout Patrol who get a wonderful project for their Bob-a-Job week when an old man offers to give the patrol 50 cents for every woody weed they removed from his valley on Fraser Island, but only as long as they removed every single one!

The Last Easter Cassia – Jacob Jones and Herbert Hancock were fiercely competitive.  These two ten-year-olds challenged each other to see who could get the best marks in every subject at school, and who was the best athlete, who scored the most runs in cricket or who had the best computer game score.  During the September school holidays, their mother’s set them a challenge – to find the Last Easter Cassia in Fraser Island.    

Stowaway Antics – when Fearless Leader thwarts the plans of some ants: Ant-Idote, Icipate, Ler, Tique, Ithesis, Iwar, Onym and Igen, that plan their escape from Queensland’s suburbia to make the move to idyllic Fraser Island.

An Adventure of the Vocal Quartet – the story of four birds, Cheeky, Scarlet, Brownie and Louie with a special bond of friendship.  The Vocal Quartet help out a local resident, Beryl, when she doesn’t notice a problem with her water tank.

The Big Four meet the Eurong Weed-busters – which tell of the big four biocontrols for lantana on Fraser Island (K’gari) a leaf sucking bug, (Teleneia scruplulosa) or “Scruples” for short, a leaf-mining beetle (Uroplato giardia), the seed-eating fly (Ophlomya lantanai) that lays its eggs on the green lantana seed and its caterpillars then eat out the seeds and the leaf-mining beetle (Octotoma cabriponis).

The last story wasn’t included in John’s book and is an ‘exclusive’ for our readers. So, if you have a budding environmentalist in your family, or just want to see a different perspective of K’gari, why not check them out?  Just search ‘children’ on the www.finia.org.au website or get a copy of John’s book for yourself.