Sunday, March 4, 2007

Families of Australia


When I was a child and my family passed through different places on our long vacation drives, I would try to imagine what it would be like to live there--with different parents, different activities, different siblings, different friends, different lifestyles. If there were a series like "Families of the World" back then, I would have loved watching these shows that appeal to the same instinct in children as pen pals do. It's a way of getting in touch with the global village, of placing your own life in context and learning what makes people everywhere different, yet similar.

Maybe that's why the Families of the World series, which has aired on PBS, earned Dr. Toy's Best Children's Product status, NAPPA Gold and Silver Awards, an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award, and endorsements from Kids First! And Parents' Choice.

"Families of Australia" is the 19th entry in the series, which on other DVDs takes children to Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Ghana, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Vietnam.

I have just two complaints about the series, the main one being that the discs contain just two 15-minute segments. I personally think that it gives a better representation of a culture to include 3-4 families per country. As I tell my students, once is "incidence," twice "coincidence," and three times a pattern could be said to emerge. Editorial writers operate on the same principle. Find two criminals with the first and middle name of John Wayne and you've got an interesting coincidence. Find a third, and maybe you can write a column about the burden that parents place on their children when they name them after a hero. The visits with the two families could also be stretched out more, and if they're shot with TV in mind, then shoot more on-location and include that as bonus footage when it's released on DVD. But I wanted more from these family visits--which, of course, is a form of compliment. What we got was interesting enough that more would have been even better.

Secondly, these segments are narrated by children (a voiceover for each featured child, actually), but there are times when a little travel guide narration of facts and figures creeps in to remind us that the narrators are reading from a script. At such moments you realize that a target audience is schoolchildren and home-schooled children, and here's your lesson. The segments work better when they have the feel of a "here's what I do" day-in-the-life. Overall, it's a pretty wholesome and appealing for the whole family. Who wouldn't like to see what family life is like in another country?

The first segment on this disc is the strongest, both in terms of interest and narration. Eight-year-old Phoebe lives in Attunga, a town northwest of Sydney, on her parents' farm. Her family has been farming for 200 years, and so there's no question that the children will participate. We watch Phoebe and her 10-year-old brother Forbes start in on their chores before going to school, and watch them helping after school as well. After collecting a basket of eggs from the family chickens, Phoebe and her brother cook up breakfast for everyone and get a ride from Mum to the school bus. In addition to uniforms, the children all wear wide-brimmed floppy hats to protect their heads from Australia's grueling sun. We see her at school and participating in Sports Day competitions such as javelin toss, high jump, and field hockey. Then it's violin and ballet lessons after school, and a lesson from dad on how to ride a motorbike-which she's going to have to learn pretty quickly in order to be of help herding the sheep. Right now, she uses her bicycle while Dad and Forbes ride motorbikes and Mom drives the car. Children will respond to how Phoebe and her brother sneak in play in the midst of all this work--riding on a wool sorter or jumping onto hay bales, for example. He second segment introduces us to seven-year-old Joshua, who lives with his mom, dad, and five-year-old sister Phoebe in a subdivision of Sydney. Dad has quite a commute downtown, where he works as a journalist, while Josh's stay-at-home mom is working on a novel. There's a little more focus on the parents in this clip than the first one, and less inventiveness in watching the activities that Josh does. He visits his grandparents (where nothing terribly special happens) and he amuses himself by making a series of mini-volcanoes out of an old egg carton. What's more interesting is his narration of the region, how they might get one year of rain but that it might be followed by years of drought. Josh shows how the family saves water. At school we watch him learn penmanship and play at recess with his friends. Like Phoebe from the first story, we also see him (tastefully covered, of course) taking a bath and reading a story.

Obviously, when children recognize some of their own routines in an otherwise exotic setting, it reinforces that some things are universal, or just plain necessary. It makes for an educational but still fun family movie night, or a great, short DVD to pop in before that bedtime story. "Families of Australia" is a bit pricey at the suggested retail price of $29.95, though it's a bargain for schools and libraries because it includes performance rights if no admission is charged. The VHS version lists at 10 dollars cheaper.

When I was a child and my family passed through different places on our long vacation drives, I would try to imagine what it would be like to live there--with different parents, different activities, different siblings, different friends, different lifestyles. If there were a series like "Families of the World" back then, I would have loved watching these shows that appeal to the same instinct in children as pen pals do. It's a way of getting in touch with the global village, of placing your own life in context and learning what makes people everywhere different, yet similar.

Maybe that's why the Families of the World series, which has aired on PBS, earned Dr. Toy's Best Children's Product status, NAPPA Gold and Silver Awards, an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award, and endorsements from Kids First! And Parents' Choice.

"Families of Australia" is the 19th entry in the series, which on other DVDs takes children to Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Ghana, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Vietnam.

I have just two complaints about the series, the main one being that the discs contain just two 15-minute segments. I personally think that it gives a better representation of a culture to include 3-4 families per country. As I tell my students, once is "incidence," twice "coincidence," and three times a pattern could be said to emerge. Editorial writers operate on the same principle. Find two criminals with the first and middle name of John Wayne and you've got an interesting coincidence. Find a third, and maybe you can write a column about the burden that parents place on their children when they name them after a hero. The visits with the two families could also be stretched out more, and if they're shot with TV in mind, then shoot more on-location and include that as bonus footage when it's released on DVD. But I wanted more from these family visits--which, of course, is a form of compliment. What we got was interesting enough that more would have been even better.

Secondly, these segments are narrated by children (a voiceover for each featured child, actually), but there are times when a little travel guide narration of facts and figures creeps in to remind us that the narrators are reading from a script. At such moments you realize that a target audience is schoolchildren and home-schooled children, and here's your lesson. The segments work better when they have the feel of a "here's what I do" day-in-the-life. Overall, it's a pretty wholesome and appealing for the whole family. Who wouldn't like to see what family life is like in another country?

The first segment on this disc is the strongest, both in terms of interest and narration. Eight-year-old Phoebe lives in Attunga, a town northwest of Sydney, on her parents' farm. Her family has been farming for 200 years, and so there's no question that the children will participate. We watch Phoebe and her 10-year-old brother Forbes start in on their chores before going to school, and watch them helping after school as well. After collecting a basket of eggs from the family chickens, Phoebe and her brother cook up breakfast for everyone and get a ride from Mum to the school bus. In addition to uniforms, the children all wear wide-brimmed floppy hats to protect their heads from Australia's grueling sun. We see her at school and participating in Sports Day competitions such as javelin toss, high jump, and field hockey. Then it's violin and ballet lessons after school, and a lesson from dad on how to ride a motorbike-which she's going to have to learn pretty quickly in order to be of help herding the sheep. Right now, she uses her bicycle while Dad and Forbes ride motorbikes and Mom drives the car. Children will respond to how Phoebe and her brother sneak in play in the midst of all this work--riding on a wool sorter or jumping onto hay bales, for example. He second segment introduces us to seven-year-old Joshua, who lives with his mom, dad, and five-year-old sister Phoebe in a subdivision of Sydney. Dad has quite a commute downtown, where he works as a journalist, while Josh's stay-at-home mom is working on a novel. There's a little more focus on the parents in this clip than the first one, and less inventiveness in watching the activities that Josh does. He visits his grandparents (where nothing terribly special happens) and he amuses himself by making a series of mini-volcanoes out of an old egg carton. What's more interesting is his narration of the region, how they might get one year of rain but that it might be followed by years of drought. Josh shows how the family saves water. At school we watch him learn penmanship and play at recess with his friends. Like Phoebe from the first story, we also see him (tastefully covered, of course) taking a bath and reading a story.

Obviously, when children recognize some of their own routines in an otherwise exotic setting, it reinforces that some things are universal, or just plain necessary. It makes for an educational but still fun family movie night, or a great, short DVD to pop in before that bedtime story. "Families of Australia" is a bit pricey at the suggested retail price of $29.95, though it's a bargain for schools and libraries because it includes performance rights if no admission is charged. The VHS version lists at 10 dollars cheaper.

No comments: