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  • Works for Children

    This trail collects just a sample of information about authors and works related to Indigenous children's literature available in BlackWords. This trail can be used to help find suitable books for the classroom and home.

  • Explore, Search, Discover

    Find more BlackWords information by going to AustLit's Advanced Search form where you can limit your search results to the BlackWords project by selecting BlackWords in the 'Limit to AustLit Project' option, or search for authors with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage by selecting cultural heritage under the 'Personal details' option.

  • Fiction

  • Nana's Gift by Margaret Brusnahan

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from QBD Website
    Adam and Ben live with their large family on an Aboriginal reserve on the shores of Lake Alexandrina. Their dream of owning a dog comes true when their Nana gives each of them a very small dog. When the dogs fail to grow, their joy is mingled with disappointment. (...more)
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  • Girragundi Trilogy by Meme McDonald and Boori Prior

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    'Alive with humour, this is the vivid story of a boy growing up between two worlds. With Girragundji, the little green tree frog, he finds the courage to face the Hairyman, the bullies at school, and also learns the lessons of manhood that his father teaches him. A young boy growing up in a large family and caught between Koori and white worlds, finds his attachment to a little tree frog gives him the courage to face his fears.' Source: Libraries Australia. (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Njunjul cover image

    This trilogy of three novels, made up of My Girragundji (1998), The Binna Binna Man (1999), and Njunjul the Sun (2002), was adapted to the stage and first produced by the Bell Shakespeare Company in 2001. It toured Brisbane, Mittagong, Canberra, Wollongong, Gosford and Newcastle. In 2002, the production toured Adelaide and Melbourne. Director: Chris Canute.

  • Stradbroke Dreamtime by Oodgeroo Noonucul (Kath Walker)

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.
    Stradbroke Dreamtime 'presents two aspects of Oodgeroo's life. Part one, 'Stories from Stradbroke', describes episodes from Oodgeroo's childhood in Australian society and an impression of her family's Aboriginal heritage. Part two, 'Stories from the Old and New Dreamtime', is made up of traditional Aboriginal lore which Oodgeroo heard as a child.' Publisher's blurb (...more)
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  • Me and Mary Kangaroo by Kevin Gilbert

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from online.

    'I remember all those things, like magic moths with rainbow wings and spider webs with pearly dew, but the memory I love most is when I was a little boy and used to play with my friend Mary Kangaroo... A celebration of a special friendship, Me and Mary Kangaroo is a story for all ages, a lyrical, moving tale to be shared again and again.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)

    (...more)
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  • Who Am I: The Diary of Mary Talence by Anita Heiss

    image of person or book cover
    Cover image courtesy the Author.
    Mary was taken to Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home when she was only five years old. Now she's ten years old and living with a white family in Sydney. She doesn't fit in and starts to question why. We live Mary's emotional, psychological and physical journey through her twelve months of diary entries, explaining the collective story of the those members of the Stolen Generation removed under policies of Protection in NSW. The diary format helps to transport readers back through time to 1938 and the lead up to the Sesquintennary and the Day of Mourning Conference and protest in Sydney. (...more)
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  • Yirra and her Deadly Dog, Demon by Anita Heiss

    Cover image courtesy ABC.
    'Yirra's Mum's sick of vacuuming up fur balls, the neighbours are fed up with having their undies nicked from the clothesline, and her Step-Dad just wants his slippers back.
    'If Yirra doesn't find a dog-trainer soon, she'll have to give her beloved Demon to a new family - one who likes dogs who run and dig a lot. Bursting with energy and madcap fun, Yirra and Her Deadly Dog, Demon gives young readers a contemporary view of urban Indigenous life in Sydney.' (Publisher's blurb)
    (...more)
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  • Home to Mother by Doris Pilkington Garimara

    image of person or book cover
    Image courtesy of UQP
    Molly, Gracey and Daisy are on the run, determined to escape the confinement of a government institution for Aboriginal children removed from their families. Barefoot, without provisions or maps, tracked by Native Police and search planes, the girls follow the rabbit-proof fence 1,600 kilometres north, knowing it would lead them home. Source: Publisher's blurb. (...more)
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  • Kakadu Calling by Jane Christophersen

    image of person or book cover
    Cover image courtesy the publisher.
    'Jane Christophersen, an elder of the Bunitj clan in Kakadu National Park, opens up our hearts with this wonderful collection of stories from the Australian bush. Join the adventures of Burrki, a young boy who travels across a huge landscape to find his way home, encountering buffaloes and snakes along the way. Step into Mardjibi's shoes and feel what it's like to visit the city after you have lived your whole life in the bush.' Source: Publisher's blurb (...more)
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  • Picture Books and Poetry

    Picture books are wonderful ways of introducing concepts around Aboriginal experience while poetry can provide playful or intense insights into another's world.

  • Down the Hole, Up the Tree... by Edna Tantjingu Williams and Eileen Wani Wingfield.

    image of person or book cover
    Cover image courtesy of publisher.
    'In the stark desert mining town of Coober Pedy when the government people came to take the fair-skinned Aboriginal children away they didn't always find them. They were down the hole up the tree across the sandhills . . . running from the State and Daisy Bates. This beautifully illustrated children's picture book is a true story. Includes informative historical and cultural supplementary material.' Source: Publisher's blurb (...more)
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  • Non-Fiction

    Here is a selection of non-fiction works that provide insights into Aboriginal cultural practices.

  • Nardika Learns to Make a Spear by Christopher Fry

    Image courtesy of Magabala Books
    'Nardika is a young boy from Maningrida, a remote aboriginal community in Arnhem Land. It is time for him to learn make a chittabutta, a fishing spear, so he can catch his own fish. Who better to show him than his own father? First comes the wood, then the fire, and then...' Source: Publisher's blurb (...more)
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  • Do Not Go Around the Edges: Poems by Daisy Utemorrah

    Image courtesy of Magabala Books
    Contains poems and the life story of Daisy Utemorrah at Kunmunya Mission and her later work as a kindergarten teacher, writer and linguist. (...more)
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  • When I was Little, Like You by Mary Malbunka

    image of person or book cover
    Cover image courtesy of publisher.

    'As Mary Malbunka shares her stories of playing with friends, building cubby houses, climbing trees, collecting sugarbag, digging for honey ants, hunting for lizards, and learning about the seasons, animals and plants, she creates a vivid picture of a truly Australian childhood in which country - ngurra is life itself.

    Warm and accessible, this is essentially an oral story, and it contains a number of words in Luritja whose meaning is explained in context and also within an extensive glossary.

    (...more)
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  • Desert Cowboy by Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike

    image of person or book cover
    Image courtesy of Publisher website
    Desert Cowboy is a story about Yinti who leaves the sandhills country to work on huge sheep and cattle stations. He encounters his first motor cars and learns about horses and houses. While Yinti is finding out about station and town life he also falls in love. Source: http://www.magabala.com (Sighted 24/11/09) (...more)
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  • Yinti: Desert Child by Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike

    Image courtesy of Magabala Books
    'Yinti, an Aboriginal child growing up in the Western Australian desert, has no contact with white people until the last chapter of the book.' Source: https://products.schools.nsw.edu.au/ (Sighted 24/11/09) (...more)
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  • Booyooburra: A Story of the Wakka Murri by Lionel Fogarty and Sharon Hodgson

    image of person or book cover
    This image has been sourced from AbeBooks website.
    Booyooburra : A Story of the Wakka Murri is a children's dreaming story about a fishing expedition undertaken by the Wakka Murri people. They hear the call of a dark man singing out from the top of a large rock near the place where they usually obtain their fresh water. The stranger's presence and his funny singing angers the Wakka Murri. This story is written in Aboriginal English. (...more)
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  • Film and Television

  • Bobtales by Director, Todd Williams

    'Bobtales is an animated series of thirteen five minute Aboriginal Dreamtime stories for young children. These enchanting five-minute tales bring to life stories of how some of Australia's native animals came to look the way they do, and why the moon and the stars appear in the sky. Presented by Aboriginal storytellers, these beautifully illustrated stories use dynamic computer animation based on drawings by Aboriginal children from Western Australia to tell traditional legends in an imaginative and colourful way.

    (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Publishers – Children's books

  • Magabala Books

    Magabala Books is Australia's oldest independent Indigenous publishing house and long term supporter of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers across the mainland and surrounding islands. Magabala works as a non-profit organization to preserve, develop and promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. It publishes a wide range of children's books.

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