When Tami Sussman was at mothers’ group, she looked around and realised just how much kids and tradies are alike.
“One kid was going for the electrical switches, another one was knocking everything down. They were creating chaos, trying to build things up and getting their hands dirty, and the metaphor came to me there. These little babies and toddlers constantly making mess, they’re just like little, tiny tradies.”
The author grew up surrounded by construction. Her father was a builder, and her family had a building business, which they lived above. There were constantly tradies traipsing through the place.
“There were always a lot of vests,” Sussman recalled laughing as we chatted over Zoom. “So many construction vests. My mum worked in the office, and she was always complaining about the tradies coming through – walking mud through the carpet, so much swearing and lots of larrikin behaviour.”
Sussman’s mothers’ group observation was the catalyst for her children’s book – Tiny Tradies, published early in 2023.
Now Tiny Tradies has a sequel – Tiny Tradies Aussie Word Book – dedicated to ensuring everyone knows all the best Aussie words, like bin chicken and sanga.
Sussman explained how the concept for the Word Book grew from Tiny Tradies. Originally, Tiny Tradies was only published in Australia and New Zealand because the word “tradie” and some of the other language used wouldn’t necessarily translate with international audiences. While a glossary was pitched, it was shut down.
Although, the book is now also available in Denmark. Perhaps it was Princess Mary’s doing, we joked.
Tiny Tradies was received exceptionally well in Australia. So much so that Bunnings did an activation throughout its stores promoting the book to families.
It was about that time when Sussman revisited the glossary.
“I said that we should make the glossary a book of its own. A lot of people were loving the book as a gift for overseas relatives, but then there were people asking what, for example, ‘struth’ meant,” Sussman recalled. “So I said well let’s do a word book.”
While Tiny Tradies is set in a kindergarten, Word Book is set in a playground. It’s the only Aussie slang picture book for kids (and parents) wrapped in a narrative.
And the “for parents” aspect was crucial for Sussman.
“I’m a parent. I don’t like reading the long stories; they need to be short,” Sussman laughed.
“The book is even dedicated to the ‘site managers forever labouring overtime’. I want parents to see themselves and their lives reflected.”
“These little babies and toddlers constantly making mess, they’re just like little, tiny tradies.”
Sussman recalled that some of the books she read growing up could be described as “elitist”, and while being “beautiful and poetic” there was “fairytale stuff” that her dad in particular could not connect with.
For kids especially, it’s nice to see their everyday Australian lives reflected in the books they read.
Sussman also said she was exceptionally lucky that the publisher to invested in the high-vis colour palette and that she was teamed up with illustrator Tom Jellett.
“He has over 30 books, he’s evergreen. He does so much stuff. I’m so lucky that I got Tom, on debut. He’s very talented,” she said.
Sussman says she still doesn’t know what it is about diggers that kids are so obsessed with. All she knows is that it is “so innate in us as humans to want to get muddy and dirty, especially as kids”.
“It’s their ultimate aim to get filthy.”
And that’s what Tiny Tradies and Tiny Tradies Aussie Word Book celebrate.
Tiny Tradies and Tiny Tradies Aussie Word Book are published by Affirm Press.
comments