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Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing
An Australian Children's Literature Project
(Status : Public)
Coordinated by AACLAP & CLDR Editors
  • Lanterns, Kites, Masks & Firecrackers

    This Exhibition brings together a number of AACLAP resources that highlight the importance of accessories and/or ornaments which sometimes play important or pivotal roles in festivals, entertainments and/or mythologies pertinent to a number of Asian countries, regions or cultures. Two journal articles are included which provide different ways of looking at some of the focus texts of this Exhibition.

  • Lanterns

  • The Most Beautiful Lantern / Sally Heinrich

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    "The mid-Autumn festival is Mei-Ling's favourite celebration. She is looking forward to taking part in a lantern parade with all her friends, and is determined to have the most beautiful lantern in the whole parade." (Source: Trove) (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • The Peony Lantern / Ruth Manley

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online
    The Peony Lantern is based on characters and situations from Japanese mythology, folk-lore, legend and popular story-telling, and describes the adventures of Taro, the Odd Job Boy at the Tachibana-ya Inn and his friends. A series of disasters occurs and is attributed by the people to the loss of divine favour, causing political unrest in Settsu.
    (...more)
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  • Kites

  • Sarindi's Dragon Kite / Janine M. Fraser

    image of person or book cover
    Cover image courtesy of publisher.
    It's Sarindi's birthday, and what he wants more than anything else is the multi-coloured Dragon Kite he sees in the market. He thinks he's the luckiest boy when he wakes up and sees the kite, and he can't wait to go to the beach fly it with his father. But later that day Sarindi wonders if his luck has deserted him. A huge earthquake has flattened the nearby town of Bantul, where Sarindi's cousins live, and Sarindi and his father must travel there immediately to help. There is no time to fly kites. (...more)
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  • The Kite That was Bigger Than Anything : A Thai Folktale / David Lander

    The story of Somnam and Sujata, who are kite-makers and the oldest women in Siam, but who don't seem old at all. They decide to build a kite that is bigger than anything. (...more)
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  • Kenji's Magic Kite / Wolfgang Grasse

    Kenji and his sumo wrestler friend Saburo build a very large kite, which Kenji carefully paints with the face of Hachimantaro, a samurai warrior. The next day, Saburo has to wrestle, but promises Kenji they will go out to fly the kite the next day. But Kenji can't wait, and decides to fly the kite all by himself. (...more)
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  • Taro's Kite : A Story Set in Japan / Gillian Palmer Richard Zaloudek

    'Taro and his friend Shota make a kite for Children's Day.' (Source: Book Seller) (...more)
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  • Mai-tzu and the Kite Emperor / Wolfgang Grasse

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online
    'The sky is filled with beautiful kites being flown by children, but little Mai-tzu is too poor to buy one and must build his own. He takes his home-made kite out into the fields and lies back on the grass to watch it fly. Suddenly, a sailing ship with wings appears between the clouds. Shortly after, an arrow shoots through the air shattering Mai-tzu's kite to the ground. The Kite Emperor then descends and asks Mai-tzu to come with him to his palace where he may choose any one of the beautiful kites for his own. (...more)
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  • Grandpa and Ah Gong / Morag Loh / Xiangyi Mo

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    'When Mandy's Chinese grandfather comes from Malaysia for a visit she is afraid that he and her Aussie grandpa will not get on. Fortunately they discover they have an interest in common: making kites for Mandy!' (Source: bookseller's website.) (...more)
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  • Kaito's Cloth / Glenda Millard / Gaye Chapman

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    Winter is drawing near and Kaito's butterflies have died. She weeps, but the Lord of Flight explains that although butterflies must come and go, flight itself will last forever.

    So Kaito finds a way to experience the magic of flight - and honour the beauty of her butterflies - even in the middle of winter.
    (...more)
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  • Old Magic / Allan Baillie / Di Wu

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    "Omar's grandfather, his kakek, remembers what it was like in the old country. Omar listens to his kakek and he shows his grandfather that he remembers the old country too." (Source: QBD) (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Masks

  • Grandpa's Mask / Guo Jing Jing / Di Wu

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    'This is a children's picture book about a young Chinese girl who shares a love for the Chinese opera with her grandfather. Now that her family is in Australia and she can no longer watch the opera on television, she decides to create her own opera mask - on her grandfather's face while he is sleeping. The author wrote this story at 12 years of age, when she won a national creative writing competition with it.' (Source: Google Books) (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Firecrackers

  • Xiao-Mei Celebrates New Year / Peter Barker

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    'Chinese people regard New Year as the most important festival of the year. Xiao-mei and her mother are preparing for the festival of the New Year. As part of their preparations they go shopping to Little Bourke Street. One of the highlights of the festival for Xiao-mei is letting off firecrackers. After the New Year festivities are over Xiao-mei writes to her grandparents telling them all about it.' (Source: Back cover) (...more)
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    Although not mentioned in the title of this Exhibition, firecrackers once played an important role in festival celebrations but less so in recent years due to safety concerns. However, professionally organised and managed fireworks continue to be popular.

  • Critical Works

  • Cross-Generational Negotiations : Asian-Australian Picture Books / Clare Bradford

    Clare Bradford discusses a number of picture books and a junior novel in which the narratives are structured around interactions between Asian-Australian children and their grandparents; Grandpa and Ah Gong (Xiangyi Mo and Morag Loh, 1995), Old Magic (Alan Baillie, 1996), Grandpa's Mask (Di Wu and Jing Jing Guo, 2001), What a Mess Fang Fang! (Sally Rippin, 1998). She proposes that these texts provide an opportunity to introduce 'ideas around change, continuity and cultural meanings' to young readers through their specific focus on 'the everyday experiences of growing up in a multicultural society' (36).

    (...more)
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  • Flights of Fantasy? or, Space-Time Compression in Asian-Australian Picture Books / Trish Lunt

    Lunt looks at how 'diasporic experiences are negotiated across time and space' (65) in the picture books A Year of Pink Pieces and Old Magic. The analysis looks specifically at 'the ways in which hybridsed space operates as a function of power and subjectivity central to the project of mediating narratives about Asian-Australian diasporic cultures' (65). As a method for interpreting the 'negotiations of space, place and identity in the global passage of peoples and cultures' (69), Lunt takes into consideration the positionings, flows and folds of personal connections made in both texts by focusing on the images of kites and streamers as 'fluid hyphens' that 'make connections between worlds conceived otherwise as separate and distinct' (69). (...more)
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  • Created by Cherie Allan

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