For extra materials and classroom resources, please see the dedicated website thegoldenday.info.

Horses for children to colour and cut out. click here, or here.

For the magical story behind the making of this book, click here.

Click here for a The Return of the Word Spy word search.

Click here for a The Return of the Word Spy teachers' notes.

Here's a great variety of Tibby's Leaf activities and discussion questions: click here.

Ursula was recently interviewed on Radio National's "Hindsight" program about the work of classic Australian author/illustrator May Gibbs. Ursula's book "Tibby's Leaf", published by the National Museum of Australia, was inspired by a May Gibbs' World War One gumnuts postcard "Off to the War" held in the Museum's collection.

Click here for a Terrible Plop colouring in sheet.

Click here to read The Terrible Plop ebook and hear it English, Cantonese and Indonesian!

Want to learn how to draw the bear from The Terrible Plop? Click here to find out how in the wonderful illustrator Andrew Joyner's video!

Click here to read the Tibetan myth which inspired The Terrible Plop.

Click here for a fun colour-cut-and-stick "Snack time!" activity.

For a Word Snoop Quiz click here.

Download teacher's notes and lots of activities: click here.

Download teacher's notes and lots of activities: click here.

For a Word Spy Quiz click here.

For Teachers notes click here

Some history of the origins of this historic European game, including rules of how to play and other interesting links: click here.

A traditional spiral version of the original Game of the Goose to print out and play. click here.

To get some ideas of how you might decorate your own board, take a look at some old and new versions of the Game of the Goose from all round the world: click here.

Make your own game tokens.

The
shoes of swiftness: click here.

Dagger: click here.

And the key: click here.

Make your own dice: click here.

When writing The Game of the Goose,Ursula was inspired by George Macdonald's 'The Golden Key'. Click here for the online story: click here.

Click here for some information about 'The Golden Key': click here.

Ursula was also inspired by Greek mythology. Learn more about the Greek god Hermes and his winged sandals on the ABC's Greek mythology website (with games, quizzes, craft and more): click here.

Here's a site about a live version of the game of the goose played in Italy: click here.

Here are photos of people playing the game in traditional costume in America: click here.

For a booklet of great classroom activities devised by Amanda Jeffery of St Mary Mackillop Primary School, South Penrith, click here. Thank you, Miss Jeffery and 6C!

Click here to see a lively promotional video of Jigsaw Theatre's production of "The Red Shoe" which highlights major themes and characters.

For description of Zoe Sadokierski's cover design for Australian edition: click here.

Website for the 2004/2005 Old Parliament House exhibition on the Petrov Affair - full of information and photos and other intriguing details: click here.

2002 obituary for Mrs Petrov "Spies Who Loved Us": click here.

For a virtual tour of Sydney's historic State Theatre, much as it would have appeared to the three girls in 1954 when they went to see "Roman Holiday": click here.

Information and photos relating to 1953 Audrey Hepburn film "Roman Holiday" which the girls go to see: click here.

Listen to the theme song for "High Noon" sung by Uncle Paul: click here.

And here's the other song Uncle Paul sings "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square": click here.

The online text of Hans Christian Andersen's story, "The Red Shoes": click here.

Polio epidemic in 1950s Australia: click here.

The phenomenon of invisible friends in childhood: click here, or here.

Information on the Argonauts Club ABC radio program for children: click here, or here.

Jason and the Argonauts Greek myth: click here.

The Basin, picnic spot in Sydney: click here, or here.

Palm beach ferry: click here.

Some images of 1950s everyday life in Australia: click here.

Classroom activities created for National Reading Day: click here.

Reading group guide: click here.

Teachers' reviews: click here.

The Red Shoe is based on the 1954 Australian Cold War spy scandal, the Petrov Affair. This event has inspired several other Australian creative works, including Noelle Janaczewska's play Mrs Petrov's Shoe; Lee Whitmore's animation The Safe House, narrated by Noni Hazelhurst; Andrew Croome's Document Z, winner of the 2008 Vogel Award; and the 1987 television mini-series, The Petrov Affair.

One theme of The Red Shoe is how we perceive the news in everyday life - this youtube video of The Reels "After the News" could be a starting point for discussion: click here.

Here are some wonderful creations from students at the Great Southern Grammar school in Western Australia, inspired by The Red Shoe and their English teacher, Erin Miller. With permission and thanks.
Acrostic (by Jessamy Hunt)
Character cinquains (Grace Huffer)
Letter to Floreal (Katie McAllister)
Covers (group effort)

Click here to read "How I came to write 'The Red Shoe'" by Ursula Dubosarsky: click here.

Belshazzar's Feast, mentioned in the dedication. Elkanah's vision at dinner and some of the plot of the novel are based on this story. Biblical reference - Daniel 5: click here.

Rembrandt's painting of the Feast: click here.

World War Two, the Holocaust and Nuremberg laws - the law against Jews keeping pets: click here.

Symbolism of the pomegranate across cultures: click here.

Get a pomegranate and cut it open and count the seeds inside, as Theodora does. You can relate it to the traditions surrounding the Jewish festival of the New Year Rosh HaShana, which occurs in September/October: click here.

Read/write/illustrate/perform the Greek myth of Persephone
and the pomegranate: click here.

September 11 2001 Twin Towers attack in New York, as Theodora sees on the television in the cafe with Rhody: click here.

Make Pink Shirleys (also known as Shirley Temples) from grenadine (non-alcoholic pomegranate syrup) and lemonade, like the one Rhody buys for Theodora in the cafe: click here.

Knit a scarf like Theodora does, using lots of different colours. Here's a how-to-knit-a-scarf website for beginners: click here.

Brett Whitely painting of village where Theodora and Samuel go to stay with Pearl: click here.

Rex the chameleon to make mobiles, bookmarks, paddlepop stick puppets etc.: click here.

Rex the dinosaur to cut out and make: click here.

Make a puppet theatre and recreate scenes in the book or create your own adventures: click here.

T Rex finger puppets: click here.

Make a T Rex flip book: click here.

Make Rex posters - what would you do, if Rex came to visit you?

Bring in a favourite toy or dinosaur from home. Make your own 'special book' out of an exercise book to write its adventures and draw pictures.

Click here for a Rex colouring in sheet.

Have a class pet of silkworms in a shoebox and mulberry leaves, like Griselda: click here.

Claudie and her classmates put on a show of the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe from "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Students can write their own stories of metamorphosis in the style of Greek and Roman myths such as Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe: click here.

Perform the play within the play, from "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" or recreate the tableaux with all the costumed characters as the children do in the book.

Each chapter of the book opens with a different quote from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - students could attempt to track them down!: click here.

Make a Mubbleberry (Mulberry cake) - like the one Griselda eats - for when mulberries are in season. Go on a mulberry gathering expedition.

Recipe
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
125 grams butter/oil
vanilla essence
2 eggs
half cup of milk
mulberries, as many as you can gather together

Mix it all up together and cook it in a cake tin on 220 degrees until cooked through - about 40 minutes.

This novel was inspired by the childhoods of two real girls, Nina and Kathleen Rouse who lived at Rouse Hill in western Sydney (now part of the Historic House Trust of NSW) in the late nineteenth century, who loved dolls and wrote their own newspapers for them. The house and property can be visited by the public: click here.

Cut out dolls and clothes for the members of the Savoy family in the first half of the book: click here.

Make a paper house: click here.

Bring in a favourite doll or stuffed toy from home. Make families out of them, use them to start a story or poem.

Create your own newspaper as Grace did (see beginning and end of book). Write articles in the style of newspapers of 100 years ago or of today, handwritten or computer-formatted. Here's an easy site that offers help with computer-generated newspapers: click here.

Click here to read the full text of Australian poet John Shaw Neilson's poem "The Orange Tree" which is quoted in the novel: click here.

The meaning of the title. Some websites to look at:

Samuel Johnson's 'The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia': click here.

Coleridge's 'Xanadu': click here.

Abyssinia/Ethiopia: click here, or here.

Prester John: click here.

Pirate activities (galore): click here.

Play Walk the Plank (like poor Isador): click here.

Make magic wands with sticks and ribbon or streamers wound around them, as Becky does: click here.

See activities for the book Honey and Bear!

Cut out triangles of bread coloured paper and stick little multicoloured dot stickers all over them for fairy bread.

Hold a fairy bread tea party. Here are websites devoted to making the PERFECT piece of fairy bread: click here, or here.

The children can come up with their own ideas as to what to do with left-over fairy bread.

Cut out and colour the gorillas in their various stages: red, green, white, pink, glittery etc Pin them up or make a mobile or paddle pop stick puppets. Act out favourite scenes: click here.

Have your own Happy Clown Song Contest - with judges.

Have a multi-flavoured ice cream parlour in the classroom.

General Ideas

For some children's responses to "Honey and Bear" look in Fan Mail: click here.

Honey is actually a little native bird called a Silvereye, which lives in many parts of Australia. Here's an Australian Museum fact sheet about the Silvereye: click here.

Picture of Honey to colour, cut out, make into a mobile or paddlepop stick puppet: click here.

As above for Bear: click here.

Appreciate the skill of making a nest by making your own out of twigs and mud: click here.

Make a toy bird's nest: click here.

Make a puppet theatre and read aloud or make scripts, or write their own further adventures of Honey and Bear for performance: click here.

Ideas for Specific Stories

Good Idea, Bad Idea (Honey and Bear)

Make a poppy seed cake

Recipe
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
125 grams butter/oil
cup of poppy seeds
vanilla essence
2 eggs
half cup of milk

Mix it all up and cook it in a cake tin on 220 degrees until cooked through - about 40 minutes.

Bear's Secret

Make a sink, plughole and drain out of a cardboard box and tube, and drop the marbles down it one by one!

Staying up late (Special Days with Honey and Bear)

Make clocks: click here.

Make your own jigsaw puzzle - here's a template which could be pasted onto the back of a child's own picture of Honey and Bear for example: click here.

The character of Isador's daddy is inspired by 1960s pop legend Tiny Tim: click here.

How to play the ukulele (like Isador's daddy): click here.

Remember how Lulu and Isador find that Antarctica is melting? Have a look at Tiny Tim singing his prophetic song about global warming "The Ice caps are melting" from 1968: click here.

Here are the lyrics: click here.

Biblical reference, the story and characters the book is based on: click here.

Jews in Germany in 1930s: click here.

German-Jewish refugees in Palestine in the 1930s: click here.

Jewish refugees in Australia: click here.