AustLit

'This article looks into refugee narratives produced or endorsed and promoted as children’s reading matter by international refugee relief organizations. The analysis accounts for their emergence as a separate genre with recurrent features, while questioning the assumptions that underlie their production and the aims they serve.' (Publication abstract)

'In this article, I survey eight Australian picture books that seek to redress a seeming absence of care in Australian politics in relation to refugees and asylum seekers: My Two Blankets (2014), Suri's Wall (2015), Ride, Ricardo, Ride! (2015), Mate and Me (2015), Teacup (2015), Flight (2015), Out (2016), and I'm Australian Too (2017). These books depict a healthy community founded upon an ethics of care, and/or a depleted community when care is absent. Although none of these books invokes structural change, all of them demonstrate how relational well-being forms a foundation for civic virtue.'

'There is a paradox in Australian children's literature and it is this: in an age where the young are attached to the very digital devices predicted to crucify the printed book, children's book publishing is in robust health. Not surviving but thriving.'

'Children's book sales have been on the rise on the back of vibrant stories from Mem Fox, Jackie French and Bob Graham and many others. ...'