Billabong Flats – Australian animal stories by Ria Loader

I published the first of 4 books in the Billabong Flats tales at Book View Cafe in November. Here’s a sneek peek at the covers for the set of books. The first book includes stories about a Big Race, one where Fearless Flyer shares a shining rock with Magpie, and a story for Kookaburra.

Next time, for Book 2, we’ll follow the Dingo pups and how they find their special names.

The images begin as pen and ink, are transformed by watercolor, and then finished as a digital print. Fine art prints of your favorite characters can be found at my sister’s store sagedepot.com.

I wrote these stories for my beloved husband, and for the beamish boy who lived in his eyes. Read these stories to kids, and to each other, for the whimsy of it. Enjoy.

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Children’s stories in the Australian Bush

This is a bit of a retrospective view from 2016, however, I found myself with a new publisher – Book View Cafe – in 2020, as yet another Big Race loomed.

Ria Loader

Australian animals by Ria Loader Billabong Flats animals by Ria Loader

These are modern fables, tales of the ordinary acts of kindness and friendship, of discovery and adventure. Purely invented, they come from memories of childhood. They occur at the intersection of seeing the animals in the wild, and imagining what their lives would be like if they could tell us stories.

Billabong Flats is a mythical place in the Australian Bush. It is somewhere on the Eastern part of the continent, in the hills, between Sydney and Melbourne, thereabouts. It is also in another fictional world at the same time. Billabong Flats shares virtual space within my love affair with other imaginary places like the Five Acre Wood, the Peace Rock, and the abode of Ratty and Mole. It is just as real as you’d like it to be – no more, and no less.

In my stories, the animals dream the world, as…

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