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Anthony Ritchie started writing songs for children in 1990 for his son Tristan, who was then three years old. He wished to recapture some of their shared experiences in song – simple things such as jumping and dancing about the room together, driving home from creche, going to the beach, counting fingers and thumbs, and so on. Some songs were inspired by favourite stories and another by an Hungarian folk song (with words added about their cat, Sid, getting lost on a walk to the park).

In 1992 Suzanne Court wrote some songs inspired by the antics of her various pets and memories of her own childhood. Around that time too there were imaginative stories coming from the West Coast of New Zealand sighting of the large extinct native bird, the Moa. A common thread through the book is an appreciation of the beauty and specialness of New Zealand’s wildlife and general environment.

Music