An open book
13 Oct 2016
Jackie French AM is a believer in the power of books to transform lives and is on a mission to help more people of all ages become passionate readers – while telling them wonderful stories.
Jackie French first made friends with a wombat when she was living in a shed in her early 20s. She was having breakfast outside when a wombat sauntered up to her bowl and gave her a sniff. Wombats have a keen sense of smell and can tell a lot about a person or place and its history from a built-up collection of smells.
“It was a close friendship, but it was initiated by the wombat, not by me,” muses Jackie. “I have the feeling he was encouraging me and showing me places and their history as I walked with him in the bush. When a wombat looks at a view, it smells it – it doesn’t see it because wombats are short-sighted. And it’s not just discovering what’s in front right now, but also what was there minutes, hours or possibly years ago. It’s a complexity we can’t even imagine.”
A wombat also played an important role in the literary legend of Jackie French, not by inspiring a story (Diary of a Wombat would emerge much later), but by leaving droppings on her typewriter; the letter ‘E’ became unusable so Jackie had to add all the E's in with a pen.
“Rain Stones was picked out of the pile because it was the worst-spelt, messiest manuscript [the editors] had ever read,” laughs Jackie. “They assumed anyone who had sent in something so messy and badly spelled must have penned an unintentionally hilarious book, and the editor took it out to the middle of the office to read it out to everyone for a laugh. They all enjoyed it.”
For the love of wombats
Many readers have fallen in love with wombats when gifted one of Jackie’s most famous books, Diary of a Wombat. The first in a series of wombat stories, it has won a string of awards, been translated into more than 23 languages and topped bestseller lists; though more importantly, it helps Jackie promote the idea of humans being custodians – not owners – of nature.
At its heart, Diary of a Wombat is a story about two species, human and wombat, who will never really understand each other:
“And yet they learn to co-exist and have a very deep affection or even love for each other,” explains Jackie. “That’s one of the joys of wildlife that I’m trying to teach kids and the adults who read it to kids. We don’t understand each other, but we can learn to co-exist.”
Part of that co-existence is making sure wildlife can safely remain wild, even when living near humans. In her work with The Wombat Protection Society, Jackie campaigns for human settlements to include simple wombat-and-other-wildlife-friendly things, like access to fresh water, safer road crossings, tunnels, wombat-only gates (heavier than a dog could push through) and well, more nature.
“We need to pay rent to the creatures who are here,” she vows. “If you’ve got a possum, then net out your roof so it doesn’t use your place as a condominium, but also then grow a couple of coppiced blue gums – possums love juvenile blue gum growth – so they’ve got a nice choice of trees and they’re not going to eat your roses.”
Having spent several decades sharing her farm with wonderful wombats, Jackie has observed many flashes of their brilliance and intelligence, from working levers for food, to nudging a box up against a chest of drawers, climbing the makeshift stair and escaping out a window. She’s even known a wombat that could count.
“We were often visited by a wombat that was used to getting two carrots per night,” she recalls. “One night, he only got one so he bashed up the door. The next night, I gave him one carrot divided into two pieces and that was OK. So I kept on giving him only one carrot a night, but divided into three. After a few nights of cutting it into three, I only cut it into two pieces, and he bashed the door.
So I cut the carrot into more pieces, and after about six months, he was used to getting six pieces of carrot, But if that carrot was cut into five, he would be angry because he was entitled to six! Then the drought broke and he went bush and we never saw him again.
So I have no idea if he was a genius wombat who could count to six or maybe all wombats are actually secret mathematicians…”.
A jumble of letters
When Jackie discovered she had trouble reading in early primary school, the term ‘dyslexia’ was not even known, but her talent for stories meant she was saved from being regarded as ‘dumb’ by the other kids.
She developed all kinds of strategies to deal with her dyslexia, so that it now hardly bothers her at all. What does bother her is that so many young people don’t get the help they need with literacy early enough, if at all.
“Dyslexia is a catchphrase. It simply means you have a problem with words,” explains Jackie. “There are thousands of reasons why, though it’s only been in recent years that we have developed evidence-based programs for diagnosing and helping people who are dyslexic. The earlier we can help them with the right programs, the better – and the help we give them has to be continuous.”
She laments that so many Australians don’t treat literacy with as much reverence as sport, and observes that plenty of schools have specialist sports teachers and lots of great sports equipment, but have stuck with outdated help for literacy programs. Some schools even rely on unqualified volunteers or make parents pay for qualified tutoring needed.
“We need more training programs for teachers that treat reading as a specialist subject – just like sport, says Jackie.
The secret to learning to read
Jackie says she became an advocate for programs to help children read after she began doing book tours at schools. Whenever she’d mention being dyslexic, she noticed the look of complete and utter shock and dawning hope on some kids’ faces, usually in the rather disruptive mobs at the front or the side.
She now tells them, “‘Look, do not think you are stupid. I can’t promise it gets easy or that the first people who try to help will be able to help, but I can promise there are now evidence-based programs that will work and will teach you to read. And I can also promise that this, right now when you’re really struggling to learn to read, is basically as bad as it gets’.”
Her advice for anyone keen to help someone with reading challenges is to find an evidence-based program, like Multi-Lit.
“Read to kids – lots. Read them the complex, fascinating books they can’t yet read to themselves, so they learn that books aren’t just the simple ones they are given when they begin reading,” advises Jackie.
“Don’t focus too much on having kids read aloud. When kids read to themselves, they can skip the words they don’t know – they'll eventually learn those words by context. The more kids read, the more fluent they’ll become.”
Reading aloud to kids shares your love for reading. Jackie also recommends you encourage them to read more books on their own… or even with a friendly animal.
“Animals won’t correct you if you make a mistake,” insists Jackie. “They’ll happily just listen. I sent a very funny book by Rob Clemens, Top Dog, to my brother who has a dog of very, very little brain. And to his absolute shock, Spencer loved it! He sent me a photograph of Spencer with his paws up on my brother’s knees just looking at him, he just loves it. They do.
Animals love being read stories.”
A brain tonic
“We used to think that brains declined from about the age of 25, and to some extent they do, but what we’ve discovered now is that reading in fact creates new neurons in the brain and new connections between the neurons,” reports Jackie.
“In other words, if you stay mentally active – and reading, of course, is one of the best ways to do this – your brain will grow, just like your muscles will grow if you take on exercise.”
For extra wellbeing benefits, she suggests reading to other people. Sharing wonderful stories is a simple way to increase social interaction, which helps boost mental, physical and emotional health for everyone involved.
Jackie acknowledges that her chosen life as a writer and farmer has been, at times, hermit-like.
She jokes that she calls herself a ‘gregarious hermit’ and often enjoys the solitude of working in the garden or writing more than having to front up to groups of people to campaign for literature. Still, the advocacy work is worth the extra travel and effort.
“Every child should read and I’m deeply committed to the power of story to change lives, whether it’s for kids or old people,” Jackie says. “I don’t enjoy the political battles, but I’m willing to volunteer to build literacy.
“It’s great if you can go and read to kids at your local school, or to adults learning English at your local library or community centre, or to older people in a nursing home. Reading helps you be smarter for longer. And volunteering helps you be mentally healthier, which will help you live longer. So being nice to other people is probably one of the most selfish things you can do.”
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