THE RAINBOW CHILDREN
Every experience in life begins with the Imagination. Children are always so open to the power of the Imagination. And out of tiny thoughts, great happenings take place. Just imagine what this world would be like if no one ever said, What if???? Within these pages are many 'what ifs'. Opening the door to the realm of possibilities, where everything is possible, we just need someone to think of it.	In Store Price : $14.95 Online Price:    $13.95  ISBN:  1 920 699 27 9 Format: Paperback Number of pages: 72 Genre: Children's
Author: Gae Anandamah Peterson Illustrations and cover: Coraleigh Papasavvas Imprint: Zeus Publisher: Zeus Publications Date Published:     December 2002 Language: English

About The Author

Gae has lived all over Australia and enjoyed a diversity of occupations predominantly nursing. She lives in country Victoria and loves the stillness of ‘the bush’. Now in the prime of her life, she has turned her hand to writing. And as Gae believes the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow, she writes for them.

About the illustrator

Coraleigh Papasavvas was born in Zimbabwe and lived there 19 of her 23 years. When she moved to Australia, she developed in many areas of artistic interest. After graduating with distinctions in Visual Art Diploma. Coraleigh pursued her interest in illustrating, and really enjoyed working on the Rainbow Children. While paying attention to realistic detail in nature, she wanted to combine decoration, representation and movement. Coraleigh’s idea was to create an element of fantasy. Working from home, she is doing several types of art, including children's wall murals, detailed drawings of wildlife in nature and paintings in her baby son's room.

SAMPLE OF THE BOOK: (No illustrations in this sample)

CHAPTER ONE

Way out in the country, on a farm, full of wonderful animals, and all kinds of plants and trees, there lived four children and their parents. 

They all lived together in a house on the side of the hill, with green fields and trees all around them. The house was always very cosy; mother had the stove alight nearly all the time, because she loved to cook when she wasn't doing her pottery, this made the house lovely and warm. The two girls had their own bedroom together and the two boys shared their room as well.

          At the bottom of the hill, there was a small creek that ran through the lower part of their land. The children loved to play in and by the creek during the summer and they caught tadpoles, but they would put them back into the creek, so the tadpoles could grow up into little frogs. The creek was never very full, it usually only came up to Vicki's waist, she was never allowed to go there alone, she always had to have her older brother or sister with her. 

Two of the children, Bette and Brendan were old enough to go to school, which they did, riding their ponies. It took them nearly an hour to ride to school each day, but they enjoyed the trip so much, they would meet up with all their friends from school along the way. 

Vicki and Martin stayed at home with their mother Glenda, and helped with some of the chores around the farm. They were able to feed the chickens, which ran loose in the yard. In the winter they would rug up in their raincoats and gumboots. They had so much fun rolling and jumping into the mud around the milking shed, as the cows were being milked. And when Mum went to market to sell her cottage pottery, they would go with her. They loved to go to market, there were always so many people there. 

The children's father, Tom, went to work in the nearby town. He worked in the local bank as a Manager; there he was called Mr. Bailey by all the people who worked in the bank and by the customers that came to the bank for service. 

Brendan was the eldest, he was tall and thin with very wavy red hair. Brendan was in the last year of primary school, next year he would be going to high school in the next town. That meant he would have to catch the bus at the end of the lane. The other children thought he was very grown up. 

Every day after school, the four children would go exploring all the interesting places on and around the farm. There were always new places to find and new experiences to have. Sometimes they would find interesting items for Mum's pottery creations, like leaves or flowers. 

One day, the four happy wanderers were down by the creek, playing hide and seek. Martin had crawled under a bush to hide from Bette, who was 'it'. While he was hiding, he noticed that underneath him was some kind of carpet. It was rolled up and tied with a string and appeared to be very old. 

"Hey, look what I've found!” he called excitedly. "We could start to make a club house with this. We could use it for our floor cover." 

         The other children ran from their hiding places.

  "Show us! Show us! " They shouted together. 

They crowded around the old carpet, as Martin untied the string holding the bundle together. As the carpet was unravelled and laid out on the ground, everyone held their breath, because it was so beautiful, dirty but sooo beautiful. 

"It's a magic carpet, I just know it is." Vicki said.

Vicki was the youngest, and the other three children laughed at her. "Oh, Vic you say the funniest things. You are always looking for magic." Brendan said kindly. "It's only an old carpet."

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