Celebrating this year’s , we take a look at Our World, and share a selection of Australian picture books that do a good job of creating a complex story world about the widely varying lived experiences of rural Australia.
has shown that Australian award-winning children’s picture books alone do not reflect the diversity in Australian society. However, we know that there are many Australian picture books that do a great job of showing what a diverse nation we are. With help from the , we surveyed council library staff across the state for their favourite picks and we share here their suggestions of books that tell nuanced stories about rural life in Australia. The full list of is published on the State Library website.
Mallee Sky Source: Walkerbooks web
While stories about drought in Australia abound, this picture book contrasts the natural beauty of rural Australia with the despair of families struggling to survive. Through bold brush work and a striking colour palette, illustrator Tannya Harricks brings the vast landscapes to life. We see the red fire of the sunset, the night sky filled with stars and the morning full of galahs; depictions of the sun baked landscape and windless days compound the frustration and helplessness of the farming family. When the rains finally arrive, school pauses, teachers, and students all dance in the rain. The lush green crop after the rain is a great visual contrast to that of the red dust and the drought.
The Flying Optometrist Source: NewSouth Books (UNSW Press)
Apart from water, medical services are also a scarcity in rural Australia. The Flying Optometrist tells the story of Stephanie who lives in a small town in outback Australia. Her carefree life is put on hold when she accidentally breaks her eyeglasses. Superglue and sticky tapes are not much help, and Stephanie misses out on cricket and other activities because she can’t see properly with her broken eyeglasses. So she, like many others in the town, begins the long wait for the flying optometrist to arrive. That is because the optometrist comes only twice a year in their little red airplane. One page in the book gives us a glimpse of the optometrist’s workplace in the city, where abundant colourful frames are up on the wall for customers to choose. It is this subtle contrast of urban and rural life that helps young readers to reflect on our worlds.
Mrs. White and the Red Desert Source: Magabala web
This book uses colour contrast between red and white to cleverly depict how differently our worlds can be constructed. The narrator shares their childhood memory of one Friday evening when their schoolteacher, Mrs White, came for dinner. Living in the red desert in a house made of tin, the narrator recounts that when the dust storms came, everything, including their homework, got covered in dust. On the day Mrs White came for dinner wearing her pretty white dress, so did a huge red sandstorm.
Hello from Nowhere Source: Bookdepository web
This is a picture book about the connection between generations and between our urban and rural lives. Eve and her Dad move from the city to a town called ‘Nowhere’ in the middle of nowhere (in Australia). She loves the town but has great trouble convincing Nan (who lives in the city) to come for a visit. Eve sends Nan postcard after postcard capturing the excitement of her town. In Eve’s ‘Nowhere’, you get to feed the bluetongue lizard watermelon, have a laugh at the Kookaburra as it attacks its own reflection in the petrol pump, run freely on the vast land and meet travellers from around the globe. When Nan finally arrives, she falls in love with all the beauties of ‘Nowhere’ just as Eve describes them.
Something Wonderful Source: Penguin.com.au
This book shows that life in rural Australia can also be about innovation and creativity. Sam lives on a farm and has lots of chores to fill his day. Dad complains when Sam forgets to collect the eggs or move goats away. But Sam is observant and spends his time experimenting with small things. He threads a rope through Dad’s undie, tides the peg basket at one end and pulls the other, semi-automating the peg basket while hanging up clothes. Then on one rainy day, after all this experimenting Sam creates an egg collecting machine using recycled parts from the garage, automating one of the many chores on the farm. The next project? Goats!
The characters we meet in these books live, breathe, and grow with their rural towns. They are not merely symbols of diversity. Rather, they have their own unique problems to solve, whether it’s a pair of broken glasses or convincing Nan to visit. Their identities are multiple and complex, and so are the towns they live in. Through sharing the complex and varied lives of these children from rural Australia, we engage young readers with the multiplicity of Our Worlds. This is how we create a healthy and diverse reading eco-system for the young minds of today.
Authors:
Dr Ping Tian is a Honorary Associate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.
Dr Helen Caple is an Associate Professor in Journalism with the School of the Arts and Media at UNSW.
