I'm Peter Benn, and I've spent over 30 years viewing, distributing and advising parents, teachers and librarians about the merits of children's films and videos.

I firmly believe that our children deserve the very best in entertainment stories, and as such I commend these videos for your consideration as being absorbing, stimulating, interesting and entertaining. Many are classics that have set the standard for other writers and producers to emulate. Many may be unfamiliar or from unusual sources. Different programs will suit children at various stages of their development. But they are all worthy of consideration in your collection.

Informed with program content knowledge YOU have the unique opportunity to expose the young minds in your care to the diversity, quality, and choice that they may not be receiving from other sources - and at the time in their development that you feel they are ready to absorb the program contents. Some offer challenging themes that you will need to (and indeed will want to) sit with your children, some you'll use as an un-supervised entertaining in-house storyteller.

Whatever your situation we're here to guide you so that you can make informed choices for YOUR children. Children are wonderfully diverse and programs made for them reflect this. Quality is often in the eye of the beholder so our aim wherever possible is to give you reference points, signposts if you like - is there a literature source, the country of production, an approximate applicable age range, the running time, themes, Australian censorship, content warnings, etc.

We want to encourage you to take control of the family viewing and for your children to reap the positive benefits that your foresight will bring. Integrating worthwhile visual entertainment with reading, writing and other life skills learning is a very rewarding experience for both parents and their children.

And we'd love to be an on-going part of that growth as your children go to kindergarten, and then through the Primary School years.

If you are seeking titles and/or subject matters not listed, please contact me for no obligation assistance. Or if you wish to share your viewing experiences with me I'd love to read about them.

I wish you and your children many happy and entertaining hours of viewing.