Book review: Deadly D and Justice Jones, Book 1: Making the Team, by Scott Prince and Dave Hartley

I’m probably the only person in Australia who’s never heard of the Broncos, much less its star player Scott Prince, but I reckon that makes me the best person in Australia to review his new book, written for children.  Who could be less biased, eh?  Even though I was very proud that my son played representative rugby as a teenager, I know nothing about the game (or indeed any other kind of football).  So, for me, Deadly D and Justice Jones, Book 1: Making the Team has to work as a story.  For my students (who mostly follow soccer) this book will need to have a compelling plot, credible characters that they can relate to, and an engaging style.

Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that it does.  Written specifically to engage active sports-mad boys, Deadly D and Justice Jones in written as a straightforward chronological first-person narrative, related by 11-year-old Dylan Conlan, who has to move from Mt Isa to Brisbane because his mother has a new job.  On his very first day at his new school he encounters the School Bully, Jared Knutz and his thuglike father, terrorising the principal because he’s had the temerity to discipline Jared for throwing rocks at a teacher’s car.  By afternoon, he’s seen him bullying a smaller Kiwi boy, Justice jones.  By page 33 it dawns on the reader, reluctant or otherwise, that young Dylan is no ordinary boy: when angry he explodes out of his clothes like the Incredible Hulk – and he promptly chucks Jared off the jetty and into the water, leaving his gang to scarper as fast as they can.

In the best tradition of superheroes, Dylan has to keep this transformation a secret.  His mother has taught him anger management techniques, but Jared provokes him again when they’re on a school excursion to visit a Broncos’ training day.  And when Dylan explodes onto the ground, the Broncos are impressed, and invite him to join the team! Of course there is a slight problem that Dylan has to get mad in order to morph into Deadly D, but Justice manages to come up with some hilarious ways of achieving it.  So Dylan is able to make amends for losing a game for his team back in Mt Isa, and not only that,  Jared gets his comeuppance too, (though I suspect that he will make a comeback in Book 2).

While not heavy-handed about it, the book also contrasts the Waitangi treaty that is commemorated every year in New Zealand, with the unresolved reconciliation process here in Australia.  (If constitutional recognition is something that you care about too, visit Recognise and find out more.)

A Kalkadoon man from Mt Isa, Scott Prince co-authored Deadly D and Justice Jones – Making the Team with primary school deputy principal Dave Hartley of the Barunggam people from the Darling Downs/Chinchilla region.  They wrote it over four years and then submitted it for a State Library of Queensland’s 2013  black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship.  They didn’t win, but the judges were so impressed that they created the kuril dhagun prize as a one-off, and the deal included publication of the story by indigenous publishing house, Magabala Books.

The book is 122 pages long and includes half-a-dozen B&W drawings by Dave Hartley.  It’s suitable for independent readers, has brief (and funny) ‘deadly notes (a.k.a. a glossary) at the back, author bios, and some information about the black&write! project which aims to foster indigenous writing.

There are teacher notes at Magabala Books.

Availability

Direct from Magabala Books.

HTAV Primary Teachers’ Conference: Workshop#2: Vincent Lingiari: Aboriginal Land Rights

This session was blogged live, so apologies for typos, omissions, errors of interpretation and US spelling imposed by my software. It was presented by Amanda Carmichael and Marcus Mulcahy from Carrum PS.

The session began with footage from a 1960s Peter Luck ABC TV doco explaining the Wave Hill Aboriginal Land Rights issue.  It was chastening to watch it, knowing how things have turned out.  All these years later, there is still so much wrong to redress…

Education about these issues is one way to change attitudes, and Amanda and Marcus are on a mission to encourage knowledge and understanding.   They showed us various film resources to use, but noted that teachers need to do a lot of work on visual literacy with their students.  These were excellent background resources for teachers who don’t know much about the topic.  However, and maybe I’m selling my students short, I have to say that some of these films would be unlikely to keep my students’ attention for long, especially the students who are EAL and not very fluent in English.  These kids find voiceovers difficult because there are no visual cues to help them separate words and process long sentences.  The ones with sub-titles were the best, I think, and yes, teachers would need to do a lot of work on visual literacy.

Apropos the keynote address from this morning, it would have been good if they had begun this presentation with some explanation of how the topic fits into the Australian curriculum.  I can see how it addresses the Aboriginal History and Culture Priority, and also skills such as developing empathy, recognising other perspectives and so on, but I had to quickly scour the ACARA website to know which level the content of this topic is for.

The Year 6 work samples published by ACARA give some idea how this topic fits into the curriculum.

(To be fair, the presenters had MAC/PC technological issues so they couldn’t share their PowerPoint, so maybe they had intended to address this).

There are more resources to explore at Marcus’s website: Gurindji66.org  His sister Brenda Croft is doing a PhD about this and he recommends keeping an eye out for her name for future resources.

It is important also to use, as a lead-in to the topic, the Ted Egan song, Poor Bugger Me and From Little Things Big Things Grow by Paul Kelly.

Macmillan have also published the story of Vincent Lingiari in their Stories from Australia’s History series.  See Fishpond.

2013 Indigenous Literature Week at ANZ LitLovers

As in 2012, my companion blog ANZ LitLovers is hosting Indigenous Literature Week during NAIDOC week (7-14 July 2013), and readers of this blog are also invited to join.

You are welcome to contribute in any way that helps to promote reading indigenous literature.  On the ANZ LitLovers blog, the focus is on literary fiction and the occasional memoir, but readers can contribute reviews of any kind of book, as long as it’s by an indigenous author.  AS you can see from the sign up page you can contribute your review on your own blog, on a GoodReads or Library Thing page, or with a comment on the reviews page.

I will also set up a dedicated Reviews page on this blog so that all the reviews of children’s books are together where teachers can find them.

There’s a reading list for contributors wanting to read adult books at ANZ LitLovers and Emma from My Book Corner has kindly shared her list of indigenous literature resources for those who want to read children’s books.

So, please, join in.  Through the new Australian Curriculum cross-cultural Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Priority, every teacher is a teacher of Aboriginal history and culture, and most of us need to learn more about Australia’s First People.

I’m hoping that this will be an imitative that grows and grows, and all teachers will read at least one book by an Aboriginal author each year, maybe more!

PS Oh, and feel free to share teaching activities to go with the books you read:)

Book review: Bush Toys, Aboriginal Children at Play, by Claudia Haagen

A little while ago I posted about my curiosity as to whether or not there was a concept of ‘toys’ in nomadic lifestyles so I was very pleased yesterday when I stumbled across a whole book devoted to the topic.  The Bayside Library Service at Sandringham deserves to be congratulated because it’s the only library in metropolitan Melbourne that I’ve ever been in, that has a dedicated section of books about indigenous issues.  Amongst the treasures there, which include fiction and non-fiction books by indigenous authors; reference books; and books about indigenous issues by non-indigenous authors such as Dr Henry Reynolds and Dr Lyndall Ryan; I found Bush Toys, Aboriginal Children at Play, by Claudia Haagen, which was written for the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, to document their collection of artefacts.

It is a scholarly work, and unfortunately the photographs are really too small to use with classes at school, but it is a very useful book for teachers interested in extending their background knowledge about the lifestyles of Aboriginal children.  The new Australian Curriculum includes three cross-curriculum ‘priorities’, one of which is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, and (as I said in my previous post) one of the science topics includes Year 2 students identifying toys from different cultures that use the forces of push or pull.  This book shows me that Aboriginal children did indeed have toys and games like that, and a wealth of others besides.

The Contents page gives an indication of the book’s scope:

1. First Toys: rattles and rings
2. About camp: playing house; story games; drawing sticks for tracks and other sand games; dolls
3. Bush tucker: bags and baskets; fire sticks and digging sticks; fishing gear
4. Hunting and fighting games: spears and spear games; parrying games and mock fights; disc rolling and spearing; shields; missiles and mud balls; spearthrowers; boomerangs; other weapons (bow and arrow; stone axes; throwing sticks; darts; shanghais)
5. Playing with sound: bullroarers; percussion toys; strings and whistles
6. Water play: mud balls and mud slides; canoes; rafts
7. Community play: ball games (composite balls; football; throwing and pursuit games); hockey; bowling or ‘jeu de boules’; spinning games; playing sticks; skipping; marbles; ‘board games’; airborne and returning toys; fireworks
8. Other toys: hoops, tick-cat and quoits; whimsical toys and other figures; driving toys (trucks, rollers and trailers).

As you can see from the list, there are toys and games which  may derive from contact with European children, but the collection is diverse, gathered from museums around Australia.  It necessarily reflects records of Aboriginal societies constructed by Europeans over time, so the collection is incomplete and is filtered through European eyes.  Any games that were associated with secret ceremonies would never have been revealed to European observers either.  Not only that, but interest in the lives of children is a fairly recent topic of research and much of what is available has survived only by chance.  This is especially so because many games were played without equipment (you only have to think of hide-and-seek or chasey) and most toys were ephemeral.  They were often thrown away when the game was over; and if they were made from plants they soon degraded when exposed to the elements.   In general, Aboriginal cultures did not focus on ‘keeping’ or ‘owning’ or ‘treasuring’ toys.  Things were shared communally and left behind without regret when the community moved on.

But what is common to all of these toys and games – and probably universally to toys and games from hunter-gatherer and pre-industrial societies all over the world – is the concept of ‘transformation’ – that is, taking an object from its environment and giving it a new purpose, for the purpose of play.

As in European societies, as ‘adults in preparation’, children played with miniature versions of adult artefacts, often gendered : little canoes, shields, hunting weapons and fishing gear for the boys, while the girls had tiny versions of equipment needed to ‘play house’: they had cute dolls made of grass and string, painted with clay and of course they had mini coolamon to carry them in.  For mimicking food-gathering they had digging sticks, bags and baskets (which put me in mind of those miniature supermarket trolleys we see today), and the book has a photo of kids who’d built a mini shelter to construct their little imaginary world – complete with a play fire pit to cook food.

Girls played skipping games ‘before ever they saw the white man’s skipping-rope used’ (p.87) and Daisy Bates saw boys playing with marbles with a species of nut.  They had slingshots too, and balls made of pandanus leaves, while both genders had toys for running, jumping and throwing, for messing about and for making a noise.   Story games were used to teach unique aspects of their culture: there was a leaf game in which girls rearranged groupings of gum leaves to learn kinship relationships and the ‘right behaviour’ that goes with them.

I have just bought a copy of this book from Fishpond to use at school  (see the link below), but something the Australian Museum could very usefully do would be to set up a virtual exhibition that could be accessed by school children across Australia, using the photographic collection that they already have and curating it online with kid-friendly captions.

Author: Claudia Haagen
Title: Bush Toys, Aboriginal Children at Play
Publisher: National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 1994
ISBN: 0855752459
Source: Bayside Library Service

Availability

Fishpond: Bush Toys: Aboriginal Children at Play

Book Review: Alfie’s Search for Destiny, by David Hardy

Alfie’s Search for Destiny is another title from Australia’s first Indigenous Australian publisher, Magabala Books.  It’s a sweet little rhyming story that features a theme common in picture books for small children keen to explore their world but are not quite ready for it –  about a little boy who leaves home in search of his destiny , only to realise that his destiny is at home.

What makes this version a little bit different is the Disneyesque cartoon characters that have morphed into an outback Aussie landscape.  Alfie has those classic Disney facial expressions and gestures, but he wears the iconic red headband and loincloth of indigenous people, and the natural world into which he ventures is populated by Aussie crocs, ‘roos,  koalas and so on.   His mum wears ochre-coloured clothing of indigenous design and his dad, seen in silhouette, balances on one leg with a spear in his hand.  So the sub-text of the story is about a universal theme which has special resonance for indigenous people still recovering from the trauma of the Stolen Generations: the importance of family and community.

Perhaps it has autobiographical elements too. David Hardy is an Indigenous freelance artist who worked for eight years with Walt Disney Studios in feature film animation, and has now come home.

While he was with Disney, this talented artist worked on The Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata, Tarzan II, Lilo and Stitch2 and Return to Neverland.  He was also ‘clean-up animation director in Manila, Philippines, where he worked on  Disney classics sequels, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning and The Fox and the Hound 2.

If he ever makes it down to Melbourne on a promotional tour, I’d love him to talk to my students: what a wonderful role model he is for career opportunities in the creative arts!

Author: David Hardy
Title: Alfie’s Search for Destiny
Publisher: Magabala Books, 2013
ISBN: 9781922142115
Source: Review copy courtesy of Magabala Books

Availability

Fishpond: Alfie’s Search for Destiny
Or direct from Magabala Books

Book Review: Bakir and Bi, by Jillian Boyd and Tori-Jay Mordey

Another book to add to our collection of indigenous materials at school!  Bakir and Bi by Jillian Boyd and Tori-Jay Mordey, is a small-sized hardback picture book, a little bit smaller than A5.  I mention the size because it so perfectly suits the intimate feel of this book, which is beautifully illustrated with line drawings, in sepia, teal, and black-and-white.

What’s so special about it to me, is that it’s the first story book that I’ve come across from the Torres Straits.   This is the blurb from the publisher’s website:

Bakir (rock) and Mar (storm bird) live on a remote island called Egur with their two young children. While fishing on the beach Bakir comes across a very special pelican (Bakir’s totem is a pelican) named Bi.   A famine occurs, and life on the island is no longer harmonious. One day Bakir and Bi disappear and Mar and the children are forced to make the journey to another island by canoe … and so begins the adventure.

Bakir and Bi is based on a Torres Strait Islander creation story, but aspects of it are rather dark, making it perhaps more suitable for older children.  In the beginning island life is lush and food is plentiful, but when the famine strikes families turn against each other.  The family has to hide Bi (their pelican) otherwise he would be eaten by the other islanders who are starving.  Bakir has already warned his family that they may need to leave the island one day, but when it is time for Bi (the pelican) to leave because he has outgrown his hideout, Bakir disappears along with the bird, leaving his family to fend for themselves.  They then have a perilous journey across the sea to a new island, and Lusik is almost lost at sea.  When they finally reach safety, they are not reunited with Bakir: he has become a rock to guide and watch over them instead.

I think that older children would enjoy discussing the supernatural elements of the story, but could also tease out the ideas behind Bakir following his destiny.  They could also explore the Kedawar tribe’s belief that a person grows to become their name: the children could find out the meaning of their own names and decide whether their names suit their personality or achievements.  (My own name means ‘devoted to God’ which is not particularly apt for a non-believer LOL!) And while the book shows people needing to find a new home because of famine, it could also be used to discuss the impact of global warming on island communities and what Australia’s role might be in offering a home to displaced communities as the water levels rise.

Born and raised on Thursday Island in the Torres Straits, Jillian Boyd was the winner of the 2012 State Library of Queensland black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship.  The illustrations by her niece, 18-year-old Tori-Jay Mordey are very impressive.  This young artist has a rare talent, especially for depicting facial expressions and emotion, and the colour scheme is gorgeous.

Visit ABC Splash for more ideas about getting indigenous voices into the classroom.

Authors: Jillian Boyd and Tori-Jay Mordey
Title: Bakir and Bi
Publisher: Magabala Books, 2013
ISBN: 9781921248863
Source: Review copy courtesy of Magabala Books
Availability

Fishpond: Bakir and Bi
Or direct from Magabala Books

Aboriginal Perspectives Resources (with thanks to Anita Heiss)

As teachers know, the new Australian Curriculum includes three cross-curriculum ‘priorities’, one of which is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.  One of the science topics includes Year 2 students identifying toys from different cultures that use the forces of push or pull, and this made me wonder about traditional Aboriginal games and whether there was a concept of a ‘toy’ in nomadic lifestyles.  I’ve read a few memoirs and a quite a few children’s books by ATSI authors but I don’t recall any of them referring to this topic at all.

Keen to include Aboriginal perspectives on this topic if possible, I contacted Dr Anita Heiss who is Adjunct Professor at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, at the University of Technology, Sydney.  Many teachers will also know her as the author of My Australian Story: Who am I?

But she also co-edited the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature which I recommend as an introduction to the diversity of indigenous writing  – see my review at ANZ LitLovers  – and she is also the author of these entertaining novels: Manhattan Dreaming, Not Meeting Mr Right, Avoiding Mr Right, and Paris Dreaming.  These popular novels are about sharing the highs and lows of being an urban Aboriginal woman but pitched at a mainstream audience.  Read more about the rationale for these ‘chick-lit’ novels here.

Her most recent book is Am I Black Enough for You? which as the book blurb says is a rejoinder to racist remarks made about ‘being too ‘fair-skinned’ to be an Australian Aboriginal. Such accusations led to  Anita’s involvement in one of the most important and sensational Australian legal decisions of the 21st-century when she joined others in charging a newspaper columnist with breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. He was found guilty, and the repercussions continue. This book is on my TBR and I will be reviewing it on the ANZ LitLovers blog when I’ve read it.

Anyway, Anita generously gave her time to reply to my query with some suggested sites:

Yulunga, Traditional Indigenous Games is an ‘activity resource of over 100 traditional Indigenous games created to provide all Australians with an opportunity to learn about, appreciate and experience aspects of Indigenous culture’.   It’s available as a CD-ROM.  Order it here.

There are tips and advice about teachers self-educating about indigenous history and culture at The Critical Classroom.   It’s not about doing formal professional development (though that’s a good idea if you can access it), it’s about reading indigenous literature, listening to indigenous music, using social media and viewing indigenous music. I’d add checking out indigenous art wherever you can access it, and if you’re in Melbourne, keeping an eye out for relevant events at the Wheeler Centre or the NGV at Federation Square.   If you’re keen to read indigenous literature, you might want to join in Indigenous Literature Week at ANZ LitLovers, I’m hosting it there each year during NAIDOC Week.  (If you don’t know where to begin, I’ve also reviewed some lovely books about indigenous art, mostly published by Wakefield Press, and UQP who sponsor the David Unaipon Award and are great supporters of indigenous writing have also sent me some interesting memoirs.  Check the Indigenous Writing Category in the ANZ LitLovers RHS menu to see what’s available there.)

The Critical Classroom has all kinds of useful resources including this game: Birrguu Matya: A Wiradjuri board game.   Links for where to buy it are here and if you ‘like’ The Critical Classroom at Facebook you can keep in touch with all kinds of stuff.

If you know of any additional resources or bloggers who’re working on this too, please share what you know in the comments below.

Book review: The Little Corroboree Frog, by Tracey Holton-Ramirez and Angela Ramirez

Magabala Books have sent me another lovely little picture book on the theme of conservation and caring for country.

Sisters Tracey Holton-Ramirez and Angela Ramirez are descended from the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, a place that most Australians associate with massive mining projects.  However this little book with its striking full colour illustrations is not about the Pilbara, it’s about a critically endangered frog found only in the snowy alpine regions of the Kosciuszko National Park in NSW.

Jet the Corroboree Frog wakes up from hibernation and sets about the serious business of attracting the attention of the girl frogs, and he gets lucky: ‘Bindi liked Jet’s croak the best, and before long she had laid more than twenty eggs in a mossy nest at the edge of the pond’. But things don’t go well and when the pond starts to dry up, Grandma Frog explains that it’s because ‘every year the summers are getting hotter…and the humans are not looking after our country.’

The book is pitched at young children so it has an optimistic message about doing what you can: a boy and his father arrive in a 4WD, and when the boy realises that the frogs need some help he and his father clean up the rubbish and set off home discussing what more they can do.

At the back of the book there are some facts about the Corroboree Frog and its habitat, some websites to visit, and a page about the authors.  The Little Corroboree Frog is their first collaboration and I hope we will see more of their stunning artwork in future books.

We’ll use it at my school in the Year 1 & 2 unit about Australian Animals.

The Little Corroboree Frog is due for release in March, and you can pre-order it from the links below.

Authors: Tracey Holton-Ramirez and Angela Ramirez
Title: The Little Corroboree Frog
Publisher: Magabala Books, 2013
ISBN: 9781921248818
Source: Review copy courtesy of Magabala Books

Availability: The Little Corroboree Frog
Or direct from Magabala Books

Book Review: Spinifex Mouse by Norma MacDonald

Here’s another delightful book from indigenous publishers, Magabala Books.   It’s due for release in early February.

Certain to appeal to small children and just perfect for units of work about Australian animals, Spinifex Mouse is about a cheeky little spinifex-hopping mouse from the Pilbara region of Western Australia.  Like all youngsters Cheeky likes to explore his world, but danger in the desert comes not just from predators on the ground but also in the sky.  Skilfully controlled tension rises as Cheeky’s aerobatic exploits become more and more risky and his taste for exploration takes him further away from safety.

Exquisitely illustrated with delicate water colours by Norma MacDonald from the Yamatji people of the Gascoyne Region and the Nyungar people of South West WA, the book is a gentle reminder to listen to the wisdom of the elders and not to be greedy.

Like all good books about Aboriginal history and culture, the book acknowledges information about the indigenous origins of the author.

Magabala is a non-profit publishing house based in Broome that aims to ‘promote, preserve and publish Indigenous Australian culture’.

Author: Norma MacDonald
Title: Spinifex Mouse
Publisher: Magabala Books 2012
ISBN:9781921248801
Review copy courtesy of Magabala Books

Highly recommended.

Availability:
Fishpond: Spinifex Mouse or direct from Magabala Books.

Book Review: Bubbay, A Christmas Adventure by Josie Wowolla Boyle and Fern Martins

Magabala Books is a W.A. publishing house that aims to promote, preserve and publish Indigenous Australian culture.  One of their forthcoming picture book titles is an interesting fusion of  Aboriginal and non-indigenous spiritual beliefs:

Bubbay, a young boy with no family lives alone in the outback herding his goats and camping out independently of any adult support.  As Christmas looms he longs to celebrate it and wishes also for a family.  A Christmas tree magically appears in the desert but it sets him a quest which looks impossible – until the magical old Grandma Gubarlee arrives to lend a hand.  He achieves his quest, and gets his dearest wish as well.

So it’s a lovely story with a happy ending that evokes reconciliation, but it doesn’t gloss over the social dysfunction that derives from land dispossession and the Stolen Generation policies.  Non-indigenous children will have questions about this which will need to be discussed with sensitivity.

The illustrations are bright and colourful and the hardback book is produced on quality paper.

Like all good books about Aboriginal history and culture, the book acknowledges all the contributors and includes information about the indigenous origins of the authors.

Magabala Books have also just launched a literacy series of little books for take-home reading called Deadly Reads for Deadly Readers (Saltwater Series).  They are simple graded texts with gorgeous colourful illustrations featuring indigenous children and art styles.  For more information see their website.

Authors: Josie Wowolla Boyle and Fern Martins
Title: Bubbay, A Christmas Adventure
Publisher: Magabala Books 2012
ISBN: 9781921248726
Review copy courtesy of Magabala Books

Availability:
Fishpond Bubbay: A Christmas Adventure or direct from Magabala Books