Book about love of the mount

EACH day, author Glenice Wood Lake takes her dog for a lengthy walk up and around the top of Mount Buninyong.

“Every season up there is so beautifully defined. You can see different birds, plants, the trees changing colour, and leaves falling,” she said.

Inspired by its landscape, Wood Lake has created a children’s book about Mount Buninyong for little readers including her own grandchildren, illustrated by Jeanette Creelman Skrokov.

I Love the Mount is written from the perspective of a child, going up the mountain and exploring it with their grandmother.

“The walks cover the four seasons, and the child sees all the beautiful things I’ve seen on the mountain; koalas, crimson rosellas, wallabies, echidnas and eagles, orchids, very old trees and ferns,” she said.

“With advice and feedback from the Indigenous community in Ballarat, I’ve used the Wadawurrung words for the names of the animals in brackets after I’ve introduced them.

“Buninyong has a fascinating history. This is a nice, gentle way to introduce to children that there were Indigenous people living here before Europeans, they loved it like we do, and that it’s a very special place for them culturally.”

Wood Lake hopes the story will spark a love of nature within an audience aged five to 10, and encourage them to respect and care for the environment.

The production of the book has been supported by the Community Bank Buninyong, and copies have been gifted to local schools and kindergartens.

It is available for purchase at the Buninyong Information Centre in the old library building on Warrenheip Street.

“The money will be given back to the Buninyong community,” Wood Lake said.