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Most parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles know of Hairy Maclary. For the uninitiated, Hairy is a fictitious dog who lives at a dairy and embarks on adventures with his friends. Each story is playfully illustrated, written in rhythmic verse and begs the reader to deliver each page with theatrical enthusiasm. I owe a great deal to New Zealand author Dame Lynley Dodd, the creator of this great character. An embarrassing realisation My introduction to Hairy Maclary took place when our eldest daughter was a small number of months old. Until that point, I had been winging it. As clumsily as one could, I had been making my way through our story time routine using stilted and stutter-filled language. It didn’t seem to matter until one day our daughter looked up at me when I tripped over a simple phrase, again and again. The look on her face said, ‘what’s wrong?’ Filled with shame, I had no response. ************** |