On the surface, it’s a humble picture book about space travel, but it’s had far-out benefits for the Ukrainian refugee children who created it.

It’s not just that the book is now in the collections of the State Library of Victoria and the children’s local Bentleigh Library in Melbourne’s south-east.

Nikita Rozmosh, 9 (left), and Petro Lazoriv, 13, with the book they worked on, The Big Space Adventure. Credit: Chris Hopkins

It’s also that while writing and illustrating the book, one night a week for six weeks, the children and their parents connected with people in the same situation — those who survived the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The bilingual book, called The Big Space Adventure , is among 250 titles that have been published in Australia by not-for-profit organisati

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