Children’s Dodo Club

A new book for the children: "Pirates and Treasures on Dodo Island"

 A letter from the Editor
 

Dear Children,
 

Welcome to this area of our Dodo Site, which is your own Children’s Dodo Club. Hopefully, in time, this site will be full of your letters, comments, pictures and information from YOU; the Children of the Dodo Club members.

Did you see that J.K. Rowling had bought a solid silver Dodo. We understand that she has visited Mauritius several times. Next time I hope to meet her.

Have any of you read the book, “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll? This story was published in 1865, a long time ago. It was written by the Reverend Dodgson who used the fictitious name of Lewis Carroll. In the story, Alice meets many strange people, as well as animals and birds, and one of these birds was a Dodo.

Lewis Carroll probably included this Dodo in his story because he and Alice used to visit the Museum in Oxford where there was an old painting of the Dodo, and also some Dodo bones. The rather fat and sad looking Dodo in the story was like the Dodo painting in the Museum, which you can still see at the Museum to this day.

Alice Liddell was a real person, who lived in a house with her father who was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. The Reverend Dodgson used to take her and her sisters, Lorina and Edith, out for local trips, which included the Museum. It was on one of these trips that he started telling the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Do you like poetry? Even if you don’t like it, read the couple of poems on the Dodo below, and you may quite like them.

Do you like drawing or painting? If you do, don’t miss the painting challenge below. You could find that your painting has been selected to go on this page and be seen all over the world…that’s why it is called the World Wide Web (WWW)! Or your painting could be part of a Dodo Experience we are trying to set up here in Mauritius. I will give you more details of this Project when there is something to tell you.

Well, that’s enough from me now.

Byeeee!

Alan

Dodo poetry

The Dodo used to walk around
And take the sun and air.
The sun yet warms his native ground-
The Dodo is not there!

The voice which used to squawk and squeak
Is now for ever dumb-
Yet you may see his bones and beak
All in the Mu-se-um.

Hilaire Belloc

Ode to the Dodo
He’d always been an early bird

Up at the crack of dawn
Breakfasting on Calvaria seeds
With a scratch and a stretch and a yawn.

Then off at a trot to the forest floor
Where on a grassy knoll,
The ladies would lay their single egg
(Taking care that it did not roll.)

And while the ladies patiently sat
Atop their knoll-y nests
The gentlemen DODOs Dodo-ed about
Doing what they did best…..

Jill Stott (From “Ode to the Dodo”, published by © Grandma’s Nonsense, 2003)

Painting Dodos
Have a look at this painting of a Dodo by Cairn Macfarland when he was only 6 years old. It shows a Dodo on the beach in Mauritius with a volcano in the background.

Would you like to paint a Dodo?