The Day Lucy and Leo are Tele-Sported

The

First published in 2023

Stories by Digital Children: A storytelling competition for 5-12 year olds is a Digital Child competition. Children aged 5-12 across Australia were asked to submit story ideas for the 2023 theme ‘Fun with digital media: Getting the balance right.’

This book was co-authored by a winner of the 7-8 age group category, Liesel Winkler and Kim Maslin. The book was illustrated by Phoebe Zeng.

The project team consisted of Dr Amanda Levido, Prof Annette Woods and Prof Michael Dezuanni of QUT.

© 2023, Copyright resides with the authors and illustrator/s of this book.

This project was supported by the Australian Research Council through their Centre of Excellence scheme. The Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (CE200100022) brings together national and international experts and partners to investigate children’s digital experiences across birth to eight years old.

The Day Lucy and Leo

It was a warm and sunny day. Lucy peeked over the fence to say, “Hey Leo, come join – no time to delay! There’s a soccer game we need to play!”

They grabbed their controllers and turned on the machine.

They chose their teams: Lucy gold, Leo green. (They played so often, they knew the routine!)

And on went the game, for hours on screen.

Suddenly, the game started to change. And what happened next was really quite strange.

There were flashes of light, blue and bright white!

Suddenly, they experienced a switch, and were teleported right onto the pitch!

Blinking under the bright lights, they looked around, at the wall of red chairs and green grass on the ground.

Nervous and surprised, they looked around for a clue, and saw two other children also looking blue.

“We are Margrethe and Lars, and we don’t understand. We were playing our game on the couch in Greenland.

And now here we are, on this pitch facing you, wondering what it is we are meant to do.”

A game console appeared, with advice to share.

The children looked at one another, their faces blank.

Lars said, “I’ve never played for real before – I’ll be frank.”

“Neither have we,” Lucy said, “but let’s give it a go,”

And began to kick the ball back to and fro.

It wasn’t easy at first; it didn’t run like a dream.

It took time to learn how to work as a team.

They cheered each other on as they ran around, kicking that ball all over the ground.

Lucy waved to Leo, letting him know she was free. He passed her the ball, quick as could be.

She took aim, with the goals in sight, And kicked the ball with all her might.

In it flew to the back of the net!

Oh, how they cheered – this was the best game yet!

They shook hands with Margrethe and Lars. And then looked around at the emerging

They were home, as far as they could tell. (Don’t worry. Margrethe and Lars got back home as well.)

There were their controllers and the machine.

On the TV were their teams: gold and green. But somehow, they were now over that routine. It just wasn’t as fun to always play on the screen.

They rushed out to their parents and said, “Guess what we’ve just seen? We now want to join a real soccer team!”

Fun with digital media: Getting the balance right

For children

We hope you liked this story about Lucy and Leo. It looks like they had a lot of fun learning to play soccer on the field.It looks likethey had just as much fun learning to play on the field as they did playing the video game. Doyou have somefavourite activities that happenwith and without technology? Maybe you like to build using bricks but also like to build worlds inapps or digitalgames?

For educators and families

We often hear that families and educators are concerned about the amount of time children spend using digital media technologies. We think it is great that families and educators are talking about this issue and are searching for resources.

Also, it is important to recognise that what might be appropriate will be different for different children and families. There may not be any one ‘right’ answer to the question of how to have media balance, but we can have conversations with children about this issue. We hope you find the Stories by Digital Children series of children’s picture books, including this one, The Day Lucy and Leo are telesported useful in starting or continuing these conversations.

You might ask children:

• What does a fun day look like to you? What kinds of activities do we do?

• What are our favourite things to do with technology?

• How do you know when it’s time to put technology away?

• How do you feel when a grown up asks you to put technology away?

Further information about children and the digital world is available at the eSafety Commissioner website. The eSafety Commissioner is a partner in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Children:https://www.esafety.gov.au/kids

Parents:https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

Educators:https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators

Learn more

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child provides evidence-based transdisciplinary research related to children and digital technologies with a focus on positive outcomes for all children. We aim to enhance public understanding, inform policymakers and provide guidance for families, educators and technology creators to support children to be confident growing up in a rapidly changing digital world.

LUCY AND LEO ARE NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOURS WITH A SHARED LOVE OF A SOCCER VIDEO GAME, PLAYING EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME.

ONE DAY, THEY ARE MAGICALLY TELEPORTED ONTO AN ACTUAL SOCCER PITCH! STRANDED IN THIS STRANGE NEW WORLD, THEY MUST LEARN TO PLAY TOGETHER IN REAL LIFE TO GET HOME.

AS THEY UNDERTAKE THIS NEW GAMEPLAY, THEY MIGHT JUST DISCOVER A WHOLE NEW FAVOURITE AFTERNOON ACTIVITY