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Indigenous Literacy Day
It gives me such enormous pleasure to be able to showcase four new books from ILF to celebrate Indigenous Literacy Day – and if you’ve missed it on your calendar, don’t despair! Just schedule your own event when you can – I know only too well how hard it can be fitting everything into our…
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Goodnight Daddy – Gregg Dreise
Scholastic Australia July 2025 This second title from Gregg Dreise for this year’s NAIDOC showcase, is essentially a complete departure from his usual style both textually and artistically. While it is still easy to recognise his deft hand, this is no updated Dreaming story with lots of very discernible First Nations art iconography. This is…
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Baabinje’s Backyard – Ella Noah Bancroft & Bronwyn Bancroft
Hardie Grant Australia Little Hare July 2025 ISBN:9781761214325 Price:AU$24.99, NZ$27.99 Imprint:Hardie Grant Children’s Publish My baabinje always had dirt under her fingernails. She would take me out to the backyard and say, ‘Sit, Marli. Observe and connect with the day.’ While I do miss the days when The Kid and I would garden, at least,…
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Learning Country: a First Nations Journey Around Australia’s Traditional Place Names – Ryhia Dank
Harper Collins Australia Ryhia Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman who grew up in a remote community in the Gulf of Carpentaria. She got to know her Country though the stories her family told, and through walking in the places and footprints her family has travelled since the beginning. Her painting is storywork, and tells stories…
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Country Tells Us When… Written and Illustrated by Tsheena Cooper, Mary Dann, Dalisa Pigram-Ross and Sheree Ford.
ILF Community Publishing March 2023 ISBN: 9781922592460ISBN 10: 1922592463 9781922592484 (Karajarri), 9781922592477 (Mangala) RRP: $26.99 Community: Rubibi (Broome), WA Language: Yawuru The Yawuru people are the traditional owners of the lands and waters in and around Rubibi (the town of Broome). As more and more First Nations seasonal calendars are being shared with students, what a wonderful…
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Earth Speak – Sean McCann. Illustrated by Jade Goodwin
Boodjar Wangkiny Allen & Unwin ISBN:9781761181238 Imprint:A & U Children RRP: $26.99 I have been eagerly awaiting this one, having seen sneak peeks of Jade’s gorgeous illustrations in the interim. It is just as beautiful as it promised. As so many of us shake our heads over recent ignorant and ill-informed comments about Welcome to…
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The First Sunrise – Nessa Stevens. Paul Seder
Magabala Books February 2025 9781922777553 | RRP $27.99 Hachette Australia I am always excited by First Nations books and I can’t think of a single one that hasn’t made me feel that way. But every now and then, one comes along that is really out of the box and this is one of those. There are a…
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Tubowgule – a Sydney Opera House History – Melissa-Jane Fogarty. Illustrated by Dylan Finney.
Hachette Australia Imprint: Lothian Books March 2025 9780734423351 | RRP $24.99 I’m old enough to have walked on Bennelong Point before the Opera House was built, and then walk around the construction site as the sails rose ever higher [not much WHS in those days, no fencing around the site!] picking up bits of broken white tile.…
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12 Days of Bush Christmas – Megan Van Den Berg & Emma Bamblett
Hardie Grant Australia September 2024 Imprint: Hardie Grant Explore ISBN 9781741179088 $24.99 As I started on the Xmas countdown, going through the books I’d been saving, and having shared a pic of a Blak Santa somewhere else, I was thinking we need more First Nations themed Xmas books. And we have one for this year!…
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Yanga Mother – Cheryl Leavy. Illustrated by Christopher Bassi.
UQP July 2024 9780702268311 RRP: $24.99 A story of love, language and culture which speaks to the very essence of loss, colonisation, connection and resilience. This is not only an asset to preschool, kindergarten and older readers, but to all who open the first page of this exquisite book.’ Dr Jackie Huggins Yesterday evening (7/11)…
Just So Stories 
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