One Word by Melissa-Jane Fogarty

Title: One Word

Author: Melissa-Jane Fogarty

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Hachette Australia/Lothian

Published: 7^th July 2026

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 32

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: A poignant and moving story about reclaiming language and the enduring power of love, told though the eyes of a little girl on a quest to learn her grandfather’s hidden first language.

When Myra stays with Pop it feels like home.

Myra loves Pop’s house. She loves the old photos on the walls, the clutter down the hall and the time they spend together.

One day, when Myra overhears Pop speaking a different language on the phone, she asks if he will teach her just one word. But Pop refuses.

As Myra discovers Pop’s painful past, they’ll take steps towards reclaiming what was taken, together.

Inspired by the author’s own experiences, One Word is one little girl’s story about discovering her grandfather’s first Aboriginal language, and his journey towards reclaiming that language.

~*~

A person’s language is an important part of their culture and lives, but when that is taken away, it hurts and can affect how that person uses or relates to their language. This is what happened with the Stolen Generations and First Nations people since colonisation.

 Instead of sharing languages and learning how to communicate in this way, their languages were taken away from them and culture was lost. This is what has shaped this new picture book from Melissa-Jane Fogarty.

Myra is visiting her Pop, and she loves being there. She loves seeing the photos on the wall and spending time with him, and everything about his house. But this trip is different. She overhears him on the phone speaking a language she has never heard before, and she is entranced. It captures her mind and the flow feels magical to her. So, she asks Pop to teach her one word.

But he won’t.

This simple request uncovers Pop’s painful past about not being able to speak his language and why. Why it is painful for him to be speaking it and what it means to speak it for him. Imagine that speaking your first language is so painful that you try to bury it and hide it away.

This story is beautiful, and shaped by Melissa-Jane’s own family and experiences starting to learn her own family’s traditional language now, and the connections these languages can form, and what it means to have the language to pass down to the next generation.

It’s cultural knowledge that is being rediscovered and shared again, languages that are being revived and coming to life through hard work, and lots of consultation and learning for everyone involved.

I spoke to Melissa-Jane about this gorgeous book that she has written and illustrated at a recent Central Coast CBCA meeting, and she touched on the fact that there are always things being discovered, and that people are still working out spellings and pronunciations, and everything that goes along with written and spoken language.

Because it all shapes how language works and how people connect with language and Country. It shapes how Aboriginal people have lived and connect to the land as well, and can teach everyone something new.

One new word in one new language that many of us will be encountering for the first time. One word that captures how Pop feels about Myra, and one word that means the same thing in every language.

No wonder this book stole my heart, because it captures the universality of special family relationships, and what it means to learn something we never knew that has special meaning for our own families, and how we can work through the pain to share these meaningful things.

This is such a beautiful and poignant book that shares what it means to learn your family’s first language later in life, and how our past experiences have shaped our lives and how we see things and what we share. This is a gorgeous book for everyone, and I hope people love it.