new children's series – Donna Goddard

May 29, 2025November 25, 2025

Foxie: The Contact Child—Field Trips

Chapter 7: Field Trips

When I moved to Gentle Forest, I still met up with some of my school friends from the Birthing Village for regular field trips. I’ve been to Earth several times. We travelled in a spacebus, which was a blast. The spacebus teleported to 100 kilometres above Earth’s surface. Then the pilot made the ship invisible, and we flew down to our secret landing spot.

Cha Chu Pani has several hidden training places on Earth. They are usually old, unused buildings, so no one sees us. We camp there for a few days and venture out on excursions to see how Earth people live—what you eat, what you talk about, and how you dress. We especially love hanging around schools and playgrounds to watch Earth children. We’ve learned many new games just by watching you.

When we mingle at the park, I don’t have to disguise myself, but everyone else does. The ones who can shape-shift try to make themselves look human. Sometimes they don’t do a great job, which makes us laugh. Then they have to hide under a big coat, hat, and glasses.

Sometimes, we try your food. Back home, we mostly eat fruit and vegetables. One of my friends loves your ice cream, but she can’t eat much because we’re not used to digesting Earth food. I love mangoes—maybe because they’re bright orange and match my foxie colouring. No offence, but some of your food is disgusting.

When one of us needs to ask a human a question, they always send me. Then I have to try my hardest to speak English and look casual, like I completely belong on Earth.

We always stay in the same place on our field trips: an abandoned building with boarded-up windows, called Hamilton House, in the small rural town of Tanglewood. A long time ago, Hamilton House was the town’s hospital. Sometimes we play with the old hospital equipment, but our favourite thing is learning about human children.

May 2, 2025November 25, 2025

Foxie: The Contact Child—Hybrid

Chapter 5: Hybrid

Cha Chu Panians are not very tall. Their skin has a soft bluish glow, and their large black eyes reflect all the colours around them. Most of my classmates from the Birthing Village look like this.

I don’t.

I’m a hybrid.

My mother and father are hybrids, too. A hybrid is a mixture of different kinds of DNA. It isn’t random, like rolling a dice. It’s carefully chosen so the child becomes exactly who they need to be. Although… sometimes a real dice is rolled because we trust synchronicity. Synchronicity is when something seems random, but it’s not. Really, it’s perfectly organised.

In me, there is a lot of human DNA, some fox DNA, and the rest is Cha Chu Panian DNA. That’s why I look different from everyone else—my colouring, my eyes, the way I move, and even how I smell. I mean, how I smell things… and also how other people smell me.

My foxie tail and ears can disappear and reappear when I want them to, which comes in handy. On Cha Chu Pani, I often leave them out, but when I visit other worlds, I usually tuck them away.

Hybrid children like me are not very common, but we are highly valued. Our mixture of DNA helps us understand different worlds better than regular Cha Chu Panians.

We have a special role in contact with other planets.

February 19, 2025November 25, 2025

Foxie: the Contact Child—Cha Chu Pani

A novel by Donna Goddard and her granddaughter Aisha Bailey, written for 7 to 12-year-olds. Together they draw on imagination, family stories, and the beauty of everyday life to create tales for children.

Foxie is no ordinary child. She comes from Cha Chu Pani, a peaceful world where children grow in glowing bubbles, all creatures live in harmony, and everyone communicates through thoughts. As a hybrid Contact Child, her first solo mission is a big one — Earth.

After a quiet night landing in Tanglewood, Foxie is taken in by Aunty Em and Uncle Harry, who believe she’s simply a lost girl with no memory. But Foxie knows exactly who she is…

Earth brings many surprises: new foods, strange customs, powerful emotions, and a maddening foster girl named Maddie.

A magical, uplifting adventure about belonging, kindness, and seeing Earth through new eyes.

Chapter 1: Cha Chu Pani

My name is Foxie, and I come from a long way away. A very long way away. Much farther than you’ve ever imagined.

My solar system has one sun, like yours. We have seven planets. You have eight.

My planet is called Cha Chu Pani. In our language, cha means one, chu means two, and pani means dancer. My planet and its twin turn around each other like two dancers circling the sun. One full dance takes 454 days. That’s a Cha Chu Pani year. Yours is 365 days.

Cha Chu Pani and its twin planet share seven moons between them. You have one moon.

Unlike Earth, our dancing planets don’t have much axis tilt. The axis tilt of Earth makes your seasons. Cha Chu Pani doesn’t have seasons. The temperature is a pleasant 23 °C all year round.

My planet looks like Earth, but healthier. There are more plants, more colours, more animals. By the way, animals on Cha Chu Pani are not predatory. They don’t eat each other. And the people don’t either. That is, the people don’t eat animals—not that the people don’t eat each other. Of course, we don’t eat each other!

The Cha Chu Pani people are kind to animals and also kind to each other. Our planet is a very happy place. But don’t worry—it’s not boring. We get special assignments.

Goodwood Audiobook is Now Available

Goodwood (Book 2 of Riverland Series) is now available as an audiobook. The Riverland Series is for 6 to 9-year-olds and their young-at-heart old folk. It is based on things that happened in our family over two generations. We would love to share Nannie’s Nest, Moon Hill, the Rock King, the Dividing Lines, Goodwood and, of course, Riverland with you and your family.

“I gave Nannie ideas for this series and told her what I liked and didn’t like. Also, as you can see from the pictures, we did the things in the story. Nannie said that the most helpful thing I did was to be myself. It’s hard when you try to be someone that you aren’t. But being yourself is the easiest thing in the world because you are already it!”

February 13, 2023February 5, 2025

Riverland Series (children’s story age 6-9)

Riverland Playlist on YouTube

I wasn’t the first one in my family to visit Riverland. The first one was Uncle Tim. He was five when he went. I wasn’t around when he was five. I was invisible. My mother says that nowadays, I’m very visible. That’s because I’m seven and a half. Seven and a half is much older than seven. Halves matter a lot when you’ve only been visible for a short amount of halves. I guess halves don’t matter much when you have been around as long as Nannie.

Uncle Tim went to Riverland because of his dog, Bella Number 2, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, which is a rather grand name for a roly-poly, snorty-porty, smoochy-pouchy sort of dog.

Lie flat on your back with your arms and legs stretched out. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath into your stomach—in and then out. Take another breath in. Slowly breathe out. Feel your body relaxing into the bed. One more deep breath in. This time when you breathe out, completely relax as if your body is sinking into the middle of your mattress.

What about me? When did I go to Riverland? I was five, and a dog was also involved. You guessed it—a Cavalier. Nannie says for her, all the Cavaliers roll into one jolly, round, fluff-ball of smilingness.

I’m sorry that the next part of the story is sad but don’t worry. Sometimes, the very happiest things come from the very saddest things.

GOODWOOD

At nine, you know a lot of things. You know more than your parents think you know. You know a lot, but you don’t know so much that you have forgotten everything you knew before you came here. Nannie tells me not to forget what I knew before here. She also says not to worry if I do because I’ll get it back again later. So far, so good. I have not forgotten Riverland, and it has not forgotten me.

Learn more about Riverland