Popular Broome children’s book to be re-released

Broome’s iconic ocean environment will be further immortalised this week as a local author’s children’s book is re-released featuring a stormy wet-season night at the Broome lighthouse.

The Grumpy Lighthouse Keeper was originally released in 2001 as a limited publication of 3000 books written by Yawuru writer Terrizita Corpus and illustrated by local artist Maggie Prewett.

It features Kimberley sea creatures such as a hermit crab, jellyfish and bluebone groper.

Corpus said she had drawn inspiration from Broome’s history, the lighthouse built in 1905 and her two children Jacob, 20, and Trevon, 14, to write the script as an assignment during her Diploma of Education (Early Childhood).

“It wasn’t planned to turn out to be a book like this, I was doing my diploma in 1999 and part of the completion was to produce a book and read it in front of a college panel to pass the storytelling unit,” she said.

“So I started with four creatures, the originals were Cassius the crab, Jacob the jellyfish, Bruce the bluebone and Trev the turtle, which were based on family members — and it was important in early childhood novels that there were five or ten characters because it’s just enough to develop songs, for example you have five fingers on one hand, that sort of thing”.

The initial assignment was lost over time, however the script about slimy sea creatures taking cover from a wild storm in the Gantheaume Point lighthouse lived on and when, four years later, Prewett forwarded her services as an illustrator, it was decided Magabala Books would publish the works.

Corpus said Magabala Books had approached her again recently to publish the new edition to mimic its original sell-out success as well as the early childhood messages it represents.

“They said to me ‘it’s becoming famous so we need to develop some new copies’; it will be slightly bigger, the words will be bigger for the benefit of children and the back cover will change,” she said.

“There’s an opportunity for giving children positivity and imagination to foster a sense of learning to read and write; the creatures have various actions, for example Cassius scuttles.

“I use action words so that children can learn these words; I want them to think about the animals like O for octopus or C for crab and also it’s a way for children to imagine the sea if they may not have access to it.”