Moving on by Penny Matthews illustrated by Penny Walton

Tuesday Treasure

In Moving On we meet our young narrator who attends a tiny rural school. It is the same school attended by his father and grandfather. The walls of the classroom are covered with graffiti. The students today can see the names of students from past years. When you open the book you can see the initials of former students and the dates they attended the school.  In 1927 William Sinclair, Grandfather to our narrator, carved his initials into the plaster wall.

"Mrs Chapman told us yesterday that our school is going to close next year."

"I asked Mum, she told me it had to close because there were't enough kids in the district to keep it going. She said too many families were selling up and going to the city to live."

Today there are only twelve kids at the school. This links with a friend of mine who teaches in a small rural school with just four children!

Grandpa Bill talks about walking to school or riding  ponies, about milking the cows, feeding the chooks and chopping wood.  These were daily chores in the 1930s before walking or riding to school. Grandpa Bill also remembers ink pens, spilling the ink and fancy cursive writing.  Oddly I am not the same generation as Grandpa Bill, but at my primary school we used ink and pens with nibs in the 1960s. I still have mine and I well remember those blue ink stains.

There is so much you can talk about when you read this book - and it would be an even better experience if you could invite a grand or great grand parent to share their childhood and school days memories too.

This book is based on the real school attended by Penny Matthews. On her web site she says:

"This was my first proper picture book. I was so excited when I heard that it had been accepted for publication! It's about a boy learning that his school is about to be closed down, and it's based on memories of the little two-roomed country school I went to. It was my father's old school too, and he told me lots of things about his own experiences there. He remembered riding his pony to school, and kids coming to school with bare feet, and how he had to drink water from the rainwater tank with wrigglers in it. Sadly, like so many country schools, it closed many years ago."

Moving on was first published in 1993.  I am fairly sure you will find it in most Primary school libraries here in Australia.   Here are some other books by Penny Matthews:

On this blog I have talked about Crusher Kevin (Aussie Nibble), Show Day and The Gift.