Understatement: It’s been an extremely hard week in Australia.

This country has seen atrocity, not once but twice. It’s seen things we can’t bear to look at. Things involving children, or having an impact on children that will be life-long. And there are many more unseen things that didn’t make the media.

I’ve had phone calls from my teen daughter, interstate for Christmas with her dad, asking if we can move to another, safer country. I’ve had to explain that we already live in one of the world’s safest places.

My little boy came home from childcare this week talking of bombers. He’s four.

And in the middle of all of this, I had the privilege of chatting with Sarah Hamilton, puppeteer for the upcoming children’s stage show, Charlie & Lola’s Extremely New Play, the sequel to their equally popular Charlie & Lola’s Best Bestest Play.

It’s sweet. It’s charming. It’s innocent and beautiful and entertaining…

It’s everything we need our little kids escaping into, just when we need something like this the most.

“There’s colour, and bubbles, and beautiful things falling into the audience from the ceiling…,”Sarah explains. “Lola flies off into her imagination and that’s what we want to encourage the children to do.”

Sarah, her fellow puppeteers and actors on stage become lost in the characters. And, if they do, so does the audience. The books and TV series are enchanting, and the stage show captures this humour, this innocence, and runs with it in a very clever, visually-appealing way.

The Guardian reviewed the show, which takes audience members through four seasons of experiences with the pint-sized characters as ‘gently knocking your socks off…’

Isn’t that what we need right now? I want my socks GENTLY KNOCKED OFF!

Gorgeousness. Sweetness. Humour.

Don’t we all want to escape into a stage show about a responsible elder sibling and his free-spirited, hilarious younger sister…a show with lots of set changes, and magical effects. A show that reminds us of the dynamics in our own households. The quirkiness of sibling-interactions…

And gosh, I almost forgot the kids would be there. They’ll LOVE seeing the books and TV series’ set to life.

Sarah is a younger sister herself, with a responsible elder sibling. We’ve all been there. (Elder sibling, in my case.)

I see in Lola my little sister, my younger daughter, my younger niece. There’s a part of her that I crave for myself: that free-spirited younger sibling who doesn’t battle the responsibility that comes with being first.

I love that Lola is oblivious to Charlie’s more serious plans. It reminds me of my elder niece’s letter to Santa, in which she explains that her younger sister loves dolls, but she thinks she already has enough dolls, so can’t Santa think of something different?

Younger siblings rock.

Yes, I’m talking about you, Sarah, my beautiful younger sister–who I not so secretly look up to.

This show, it has to be said, is built on second-child-syndrome…and so much is to be said for that position in the birth order!

I’m taking my ‘third child’ to see it!

The essentials

What: Charlie & Lola’s Extremely New Play
When: Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 January 2015
Where: Canberra Theatre Centre, Civic
How much: $34.90 to $39.90
Web: www.livenation.com.au and www.charlieandlola.com