Just So Stories

Scholastic Australia

May 2024

ISBN 9781760975159
RRP $26.99

 ‘Do not cry for earth who birthed you, for river as she calls your name… Do not weep for songs of land, for your old people and sacred stories’.

So begins this beautiful, powerful and poignant new book from award-winning author and OAM, Kirli Saunders. This is a literary embrace to honour the Stolen Generations, their descendants and those who have been taken from Country. The inter-generational trauma continues for so many of our First Nations people and affects many deeply.

With its poetic style, the text speaks of returning and remembrance and has been written with genuine deference and a deep love for those survivors , most especially Kirli’s own mother, and her removal from Yuin country in the early 1970s.

Aside from the text, the extraordinary illustrations from newcomers, siblings David and Noni Cragg [Bundjalung country] are just sensational. Their artwork is expressive and full of emotion, in such a striking style that readers will remember the images for a long time.

One might think this book is pitched at an audience of First Nations readers, and to an extent that is true as it addresses those returning to country, but, in fact, it is also an essential addition to your canon of First Nations literature, and to your embedding of cross-cultural perspectives within either classroom or library.

There are several others that will complement this one perfectly – many of which I have been privileged to read and review, particularly, e.g., For 60 000 Years, Our Dreaming, and Listen. And, for me, this seemed a perfect book to conclude this week of reviews for Reconciliation Week. I highly recommend it to you for your readers from around Year 3 upwards.

It is a book that speaks to the heart of every true Australian, and by that I mean, the ones who are still ashamed of last year’s result and a long history of exclusion and denial.

It truly is time for Now More Than Ever.

‘Do not mourn the hands that raised you … Do not weep for songs of land.’

I acknowledge the Gubbi Gubbi, the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and write, and pay my respects to elders past and present – Redcliffe, Australia. I also acknowledge and pay my respects to all the First Nations people of our land, and in particular, the Wiradjuri – traditional country of my children and grandchildren.