‘Activity Books for Young Australians’ do not actually make such a claim, but the authors appear to feel that the only way to persuade children to learn about the Amazing Animals of Australia or The Prehistoric Dinosaurs is to intersperse facts with instructional puzzles, crosswords or mazes. The result is an uneasy mixture of bare facts, scraps of information and heavy jocularity, as in this extract: ‘In 1960 a boy named Peter Nicholson studied wombats by bravely crawling down their tunnels to see what they did during the day. Wombats have been known to trap dogs that have come into their burrows and crush them against walls to break their bones. What did this wombat say to Peter? Do every sum and turn the answers to each into a letter using the key. These letters will spell out the answer.’ I am a compulsive doer of puzzles so I did nineteen sums, sneering at myself the nonce, and discovered that he said, ‘Mr Nicholson I presume.’

The information so far as it goes is correct, but no connection is made between one random fact and the next: ‘There is only one other animal in the world that is a monotreme. It is the Australian echidna. The echidna feeds mainly on one insect. What is it? (Puzzle picture.) All platypus build burrows …’ No definition of monotreme is given; the minute two facts have been strung together the author nervously breaks off to insert a puzzle to jolly the children along the arduous path of learning. In both books, but particularly in The Prehistoric Dinosaurs, the information remains at the basic, not to say banal, level while the puzzles, which are laborious rather than stimulating, seem aimed at an eight or nine year old with the patience of Job and about as much curiosity as a Stegosaurus.

The four Glenferrie Primary School mothers who compiled Age Weekender’s Fun Plus are genuinely enthusiastic ‘leaders forth’ and not crammers in of knowledge. They start from the child himself: ‘Kids are curious creatures. They love to see how things work and to watch familiar objects being made.’ Therefore, why not take them to Parliament House, the Law Courts, the Stock Exchange or H.S.V.7? Everyone needs to run wild sometimes, particularly children, whose activities are so much restricted by things beyond their control. Think of school, wet days, having to stay clean because you’re going out in an hour and everything else is in the wash, and so on. Children obviously need an outlet for pent-up frustrations, tensions and overflowing energy, so the editors obligingly list ‘City Play Places’ large and small.

They never underestimate the child. His curiosity is endless, his capacity for asking questions limitless. Given half a chance he will learn about the world around him by himself, by making connections and drawing deductions. In the section on ‘Historical Places’ the authors suggests that you always encourage children to use their eyes and their imaginations: ‘What would it have been like to … ?’ Make comparisons, find old photographs, encourage kids to feel what it would have been like to wear one of the dresses on display at Como. Take them to one of the many markets round Melbourne: ‘Children love the bustle of activity at markets and, certainly for children who think that food and other goods appear in the shops by magic, this is an important link in the chain of enlightenment.’ So much of our education really lies in making links between one thing and another, and yet at schools we often parcel out snippets of isolated knowledge in vacuo. We should give children the chance to make deductions and draw conclusions. ‘Wherever you walk, whether for pleasure or necessity, there is always something you can look for. Give you child something to be curious about, and your walks should be more fun for everyone concerned … Older children can count things, then ask questions about what they find – why a certain number of things? Would it be the same if you counted these particular things in the suburbs, in a small town, in the country? If not, why not?’

The book is divided into thirty-five sections: Interesting Places, Nature’s Wonders, Eating, Fishing and so on. After a brief preamble which gives the rationale behind doing something or going to certain places in preference to others and which also includes sensible advice about various expeditions, the authors list all the relevant information about where to go, what to pay, when it’s shut and what you can do. If ever there was a book than enshrines the whole philosophy of ‘Life Be In It’ and is a bold, triumphant, invigorating counterblast to our apathetic telly-fed world, this is it.