Before I start this post, I would like to let Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that the database and some parts of this post may contain names or mention deceased people in the text, and some of the books explored may contain views that were acceptable at the time the item was written or recorded, but I acknowledge that they are not acceptable today. I am citing any of these as an historical record and resource to illustrate the historical context and show how understandings have changed over the years.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection at the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature has 570 books at the moment, and there are always more books being added to this collection, which is separate from the Cultural Diversity collection to highlight the importance of both in their own ways. When this database was created, the NCACL put a team of knowledgeable people with various perspectives and expertise collaborated on this resource, and the resource is current to June 2020, and will constantly be updated.
During the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2019, where people worked to raise awareness about the growing loss of Indigenous languages across the world and the consequences about this. The UN used this year to work on inking language, development, peace, and reconciliation with the presence and knowledge of Indigenous languages. The NCACL contributes to this focus on Indigenous languages by celebrating and promoting books by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including ones in Indigenous languages. The NCACL has been working on this in stages, and the funding of stage one has allowed the NCACL to put a free, comprehensive resource together, which has unique insights on books written by or about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with a grant that covered books for children up to eight years of age. The NCACL expanded the collection when they added books for children aged up to twelve. When these books are discovered, the NCACL aims to provide information about them and identify resources that can explore and expand on them, and this resource was launched in July 2020.
Ever since its launch, the NCACL has received additional funding to expand this resource, and since late March 2021, the resource has been adding books aimed at children from birth through to the secondary years to allow children of all ages to see themselves represented in the books they read.
Whilst this resource contains books aimed at children aged from birth through to eight, some of the books are also accessible to older age groups. Stage two of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Resource researched and added books for secondary school, and the continual updating of the resource will make sure books are current and highlight new directions. The initial discovery led to over 350 books by, or about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people published between 1974 and 2020. The following filters can be used to search the books, as can free text searching:
- bibliographic details
- subjects for each book
- audience including age range.
- annotation highlighting content.
- Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander creators’ cultural background will be identified when such information can be identified.
- story location and/or community information
- language(s), as appropriate to individual books
- identification of writing techniques and styles
- artistic media and technique
- curriculum links for the Early Years Learning Framework
- curriculum links for the Australian Curriculum
- teaching and other information resources related to the book.
This resource will be invaluable to Indigenous and non-Indigenous parents, caregivers, schooling groups, teachers, librarians, and anyone else working with young people in a range of settings. It will be most useful for teachers addressing the Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian Curriculum. However, it will also be useful for adults involved in creative writing and art with young people, and as a book blogger, I have been finding it interesting. It will also be interesting and useful to researchers, academics, publishers, authors, illustrators, booksellers, and organisations that bring children and books together such as the CBCA.
Other people who will find this resource useful will be young people – so they can find books for their interests and school assignments. Should you wish to include these books in a personal or institutional collection, you should contacy a library, publisher or a bookseller.
The content of the books in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection includes different cultural practices, languages, and communities. The NCACL resources aims to provide as much information about these books as possible and aims to explore and expand on them as much as possible. Many of the stories represent the richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and their Dreaming and teaching stories as an important part of the collection. The wonderful thing is the range of styles and formats these stories take: picture books, verse, verse novels, short stories, graphic novels, historical works, fantasy, allegories, memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, readers, and non-fiction. Sometimes, these are mixed within a single book, and each work can feature different settings, time periods, and cultural practices to expand on available perspectives.
Authors have used a wide array of styles and media to create their books, including photographs, postcards, relics, artefacts, artworks, manuscripts, historical records, interviews, posters, diagrams, maps, letters, glossaries of terms, and language, or any other material that was useful for the story. The books also have a wide range of artistic styles and media.
Sources used to Identify books.
Each database and resource at the NCACL uses a range of sources to create the databases and resources. The NCACL’s database of books by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources is one of the most comprehensive in Australia – you can find other collections at the National Library of Australia, and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. You can find all three in Canberra.
In addition to the database, the NCACL has research files and a reference with a wide range and scope about the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. And publishers have helped to build this database when they have sent older books, books currently in prints, and forthcoming titles.
Finally, the NCACL also used online databases from educational bodies, tertiary institutions, professional organisations, and anywhere else with relevant knowledge. National and regional organisations with certain lists and awards for children’s books have also been examined, as have bibliographies that international, national, and specialist organisations have created. And finally, academic publishers, academic studies, and articles were consulted. The NCACL team examined every book in the resource as well.
Inevitably, with all these sorts of resources and databases, there are always going to be exclusions. The current database in stage one focused on books aimed at children from birth to eight years old. In March 2021, books for children older than twelve started to be added. However, the books aimed at younger children are also suitable for older children.
The NCACL is excited to share the wealth of 570 (at date of putting this together) books with the public. To find the books, follow this link or refer to the quick tips below.
A few things to remember:
- Search terms are not case sensitive.
- You must use correct spelling.
- Names can be entered in any order.
- June 2020 was the cut-off date – books published after this date will be added in future updates.
- Annotations give a synopsis, including content and purpose, and series details.
- If searching by publisher, use all iterations of their names as they may have changed their name.
- EYLF – Early Years Learning Framework
More quick tips are in a PDF file when you click on the quick tips link within this page.
You can find reviews and media coverage here.
Books
The books included in this database have the same information about age group, the basic publication details, and the target educational groups, language, and ISBN as the Cultural Diversity database, but they have different subjects to search. These subjects include:
- Aboriginal Australian, Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal Australian soldiers
- Arrernte/Aranda people
- Art
- Australian Government policy
- Bilingual books
- Citizenship
- Country
- Cultural Heroes, Culture
- Dreaming
- Gunbalunya/Oenpelli (West Arnhem Land N.T.)
- Giunwinggu/Gunwinygu/Kunwinjku people
- History
- Human Rights
- Indigenous knowledge
- Kuranda region (Qld)
- Marringarr/Gidjingali people (NT)
- Missions
- Namatjira, Albert
- Ntaria/Hermannsburg (South Central NT)
- Papunya
- Pioneers
- Racism
- Seasons
- Social life and customs
- Storytelling
- Tiwi Islands
- Worrowa People
This is just a sampling of the subjects available, as in the advanced search options you can search by subject or age group, as well as looking for a specific book. There are too many to list here, so I have chosen a few that stand out, and a few specific cultural groups or nations to show you can search for books about, or by people from a certain area in Australia. The other difference is that there are also lists of teaching resources for some, from publishers, educational institutions, and other relevant sources linked to the books based on the subjects. One of the things I found useful was the filter system, and one of the filters I used was the Aboriginal Australian Literature, which on the day I searched, gave me five results. One of those results is a book I have had on my shelf for a while is Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence by Anita Heiss, which is part of the My Story series from Scholastic. It is useful for upper primary and lower secondary students to talk about the Stolen Generation through an authentic voice in diary format, which allows the reader to engage with Mary’s story as she turns eleven and sees the 150th anniversary of Australian colonisation.
One of the things that stands out about this epistolary novel is that is makes a topic that might come across as dry in a text book engaging and insightful, inviting readers from all backgrounds into Mary’s world, and the use of ‘bad grammar’ and ‘incorrect spelling’ only serves to cement the differences Mary sees in the world alongside her identity and give her an authentic voice – which I think is important for any book and any character. This novel also explores the destruction of one’s identity – changing the name of the narrator when she’s taken away to suit the Home she is sent to. The importance of these books serves to remind us about a time in our history that wasn’t great, that hurt so many people. It is one book that I am looking forward to exploring more as I think there are so many aspects of history that we don’t always know about, and they keep history alive for future generations.
Another book that stood out to me, and one that I have read and given as a gift was Amazing Australian Women: Twelve Women Who Shaped History by Pamela Freeman and Sophie Beer in 2018 by Hachette. Whilst this book is by two non-Indigenous women. The book celebrates Australian women who have achieved things throughout our history, some that are well-known, and others who aren’t. Two of the women included are Indigenous women – and they were ones I had never heard of despite reading widely and studying history since high school, so finding out about these women was interesting and made me wish we had more about them in our history classes.
The first of these women is Tarenore, or Walyer. Tarenore (c. 1800 to 1831) was a resistance fighter in Tasmania, and a Tomeginee woman who led a guerrilla resistance against the Europeans. The second Indigenous woman that this intriguing and educational picture book highlight is Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996), born in Alhalkere country as an Anmatyerre girl, and is an artist whose art work is featured in galleries around the world. These are just two Indigenous women and people that history books are hopefully going to start including to illustrate the different ways Indigenous people have contributed to and been a part of Australia’s history since colonisation in 1788.
In the last few years, I have noticed a few bilingual books coming out – books that are written in English and an Indigenous language like the Arrernte language. The power of these books is to show both languages side-by-side, so people can learn a new language and engage with Indigenous culture. These books are great to engage with language, to help children learn a new language and see their Indigenous language represented. One of these books is Artweyenhenge: Family This book focuses on family and counting as a cross-cultural resource – it merges Arrernte language, English numeracy, and First Nations values with Western numeracy learning to ensure anyone who reads this book gets something from it and gains an understanding of two different cultures alongside each other. One difference is that the Arrernte counting systems uses grouping terms for numbers beyond three – which is why one, two and three are the main numbers that have been translated.
Another bilingual book is Gelam the Man from Moa: A Legend of the People of the Torres Strait Islands by Anne Abednego Gela as the author and the illustrator. It is told in English and the Kala Lagaw Ya language, celebrating oral storytelling and culture and the way legends inform relationships of Torres Strait Islanders to the ocean. This book is one of many versions of the Gelam legend, that Anne heard from her mother’s Moa Island relatives. Gelam’s story begins when he is left on the island with his mother when a dhogai, an evil spirit comes to the island. But Gelam and his mother outwit the dhogai when they are helped by a sand crab. The importance of books like this highlight these legends and stories passed down through generations and is another way to illustrate that with any legend or folk tale, there will always be variations across cultures or even within cultures and different language groups. This is a book that celebrates culture and identity and the importance of connection to a place your ancestors come from. Telling the story in three parts is effective – it allows each section to be its own entity and to build on the story in an oral and written way that allows two different storytelling types to come together effectively.
Another book I want to explore is Australia’s Unwritten History: More Legends of our Land by Ooderoo Noonuccal, because I am always interested in untold stories, and the nice thing about this one is that it collects stories from different regions of Australia, and focuses on the legends of Australia that explore why things changed and why Indigenous people did things in their ways throughout their history. It looks to be a valuable resource that explores untold history, and stories that we need to know to understand Indigenous history. The book does use the outdated term ‘tribes’, but the resource acknowledges that some books do use this outdated language on the basis that it was what was used or known at the time of the books being written. The outdated language and ideas illustrate how language has changed and adapted to be inclusive and non-discriminatory, but newer books show how this has changed, and this is what makes the database so valuable because it allows all these books to exist so readers can see how approaches have changed.
I also like exploring books that intersect between identities like Cheeky Dogs: To Lake Nash and Back: An Illustrated Memoir by Dion Beasley. Dion is deaf, and has muscular dystrophy, and is an Alywarr man in Tennant Creek. This illustrated memoir beautifully captures remote life through interplay between words and images. The stories play with the opposites of day and night, light and dark, and readers can feel connected to Dion. One of the key themes which is quite universal is the importance of community – and what it means to Dion and his relationship with his family. The stories that celebrate these sorts of things are useful in a range of settings can be used to discuss the role of memoir and family in stories and can appeal to older child readers as well as adult readers – the kind of book that has a broad appeal and range of uses.
The books in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection all have teaching resources attached to the book’s entry in the database which can be used to enhance and expand the learning experience for readers of all ages and backgrounds, and I have explored a few of these extra resources and found them to be very interesting and educational. There are so many – 570 – to explore, so I hope this selection gives an idea of what is available in the collection and urges people to explore the resource further. It was an interesting research project, and I am looking forward to seeing what future databases will hold.
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