Helen Milroy on her two new books for young children, 'Bush Bugs' and 'Crow Baby'

Bush Bugs is a colourful array of Australian insects that will captivate young children. From spiky stick insects to hairy spiders, from blood-sucking mosquitos to dung-eating blow flies and feasting wasps, this is a fun and easy-to-read book introducing tiny readers to tiny bush critters. Crow Baby tells the story of a baby born with two spirits – one human and one crow. The baby grows up to be Daisy Crow, a girl who lives with humans by day and flies with the crows in her dreams. Crow Baby is a bittersweet story of sacrifice, metamorphosis and change. It introduces key First Nations concepts of dream journeys and spiritual gifts to young readers aged 6+ and gives them much to think about and discuss. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Helen Milroy about creating a shortlist of our amazing bush bugs, finding the beauty in a blowfly, tracing the origins of the Daisy Crow character and how her background in mental health shapes her approach to storytelling.