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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
(Source: Back cover)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording.
Works about this Work
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And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda : Australian Picture Books (1999–2016) and the First World War
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , vol. 50 no. 2 2019; (p. 91-109)'Over the past two decades children’s picture books dealing with the Australian experience during the First World War have sought to balance a number of thematic imperatives. The increasingly sentimentalised construct of the Australian soldier as a victim of trauma, the challenge of providing a moral lesson that reflects both modern ideological assumptions and the historical record, and the traditional use of Australian war literature as an exercise in nation building have all exerted an influence on the literary output of a range of authors and illustrators. The number of publications over this period is proof of the enduring fascination with war as a topic as well as the widespread acceptance that this conflict has been profoundly significant in shaping Australian public and political culture and perceptions about national character and identity (Beaumont, 1995, p. xvii). As MacCallum-Stewart (2007, p. 177) argues, authors and illustrators must therefore balance notions of ‘respect’ for a national foundation myth with a ‘pity of war’ approach that reflects modern attitudes to conflict. Whatever their ideological commitment, many authors and illustrators respond to this challenge by adopting an approach that serves to indoctrinate readers into the Anzac tradition (Anzac refers to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps raised for war in 1914. It has become a generic term for Australian and New Zealand soldiers. The Anzac tradition established at Gallipoli, Australia’s first major military campaign, has been traditionally viewed as the nation’s founding.'
Source: Publication blurb.
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Representations of National Identity in Fictionalized History : Children's Picture Books and World War I
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship , vol. 23 no. 2 2017; (p. 126-147)'With the centenary of World War I (WWI) commemorative events taking place, Australia’s involvement in this conflict is popularly seen as inextricably linked to a definitive national identity. Numerous children’s books have been published that represent events from WWI. Eight such picture books, aimed at primary school students and published post-2010, are selected for analysis. This analysis comes at a time when there is significant attention being paid by governments, community organisations, media outlets and the general public to the anniversary of WWI. Therefore, it is timely to analyse representations of this conflict, particularly to understand contemporary representations aimed at children.'
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Remembering the Past through Picture Books
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Picture Books and Beyond 2014; (p. 12-24)In anticipation of the commemorations around the centenary of World War 1 (2014-2018) this chapter examines the ways in which war and its effects have been represented in picture books for children. It looks at the ways in which these picture books create “textual monuments” as points of reference through which younger generations can “develop a narrative of the past” and “explore different points of view”.
- y Playing with Picturebooks : Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2012 Z1909588 2012 single work criticism "Postmodernism has played a significant part in the development of playful and experimental picturebooks for children over the past 50 years. Playing with Picturebooks offers fresh insights into the continuing influence of postmodernism on picturebooks for children, covering a wide range of international picturebooks predominantly from the 1980s to the present. It represents a significant contribution to current debates centred on the decline of the effects of postmodernism on fiction and detects a shift from the postmodern to the postmodernesque. Playing with Picturebooks draws on a wide range of critical perspectives in examining postmodern approaches to narrative and illustration. Chapters discuss how metafictive devices enable different modes of representation, offer different perspectives to authorised version of history, and promote difference and ex-centricity over unity. Playing with Picturebooks is essential reading, not only for academics in the field of children's literature, but also for researchers, teachers and students." (Back cover)
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Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.
In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)
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Books to Look Forward to : Memorial and Gallipoli
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , March vol. 14 no. 1 1999; (p. 8-9)
— Review of Memorial 1999 single work picture book -
Text and Illustrations in Unison
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 19 August 2000; (p. 19)
— Review of Jenny Angel 1999 single work picture book ; Luke's Way of Looking 1999 single work picture book ; Memorial 1999 single work picture book -
[Review] Memorial
1998
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 201 1998; (p. 44)
— Review of Memorial 1999 single work picture book -
[Review] Memorial
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 13 no. 3 1999; (p. 19 - 20)
— Review of Memorial 1999 single work picture book -
[Review] Memorial
1986
single work
review
— Appears in: Classroom , August vol. 6 no. 1986; (p. 44 - 45)
— Review of Memorial 1999 single work picture book -
Mapping Australia's Past in Picture Books
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Bookbird , vol. 47 no. 2 2009; (p. 18-26) "This paper examines four influential Australian picture books that provide narratives from different perspectives, representing the white men's (and especially military) history, white women's (settler) history, Aboriginal history (from traditional life to colonial and then post-colonial), and finally everybody's history, especially giving a voice to children". - Paper abstract -
Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.
In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)
- y Playing with Picturebooks : Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2012 Z1909588 2012 single work criticism "Postmodernism has played a significant part in the development of playful and experimental picturebooks for children over the past 50 years. Playing with Picturebooks offers fresh insights into the continuing influence of postmodernism on picturebooks for children, covering a wide range of international picturebooks predominantly from the 1980s to the present. It represents a significant contribution to current debates centred on the decline of the effects of postmodernism on fiction and detects a shift from the postmodern to the postmodernesque. Playing with Picturebooks draws on a wide range of critical perspectives in examining postmodern approaches to narrative and illustration. Chapters discuss how metafictive devices enable different modes of representation, offer different perspectives to authorised version of history, and promote difference and ex-centricity over unity. Playing with Picturebooks is essential reading, not only for academics in the field of children's literature, but also for researchers, teachers and students." (Back cover)
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The Paradoxes of History in Crew and Woolman's Tagged and Crew and Tan's Memorial
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Rethinking History : The Journal of Theory and Practice , vol. 6 no. 3 2002; (p. 331-343) 'The publication of two illustrated books with verbal text by the Australian writer Gary Crew provides an opportunity to compare the presentation of war memories in picture story book and graphic novel format. Gary Crew and Shaun Tan's Memorial (1999) is a thought-provoking picture story book, while Crew and Steven Woolman's Tagged (1997) is an idiosyncratic graphic novel. The picture story book illustrations depict the commemorative tree as more real, more present than the book's human beings. The verbal text asserts that memory will live on through generations of the war veterans' family, as in the tree, but the illustrations of the cutting down of the tree and the verbal text revealing a veteran's self-censorship reveal these claims to be at best tenuous, at worst, false. Nevertheless, despite the current town council's disrespect for the commemorative tree, the Anzac Day ceremony remains a socially sanctioned rite of remembering war. The illustrations to Tagged represent a war veteran's confused mind and his compulsive reliving of his past as confusing visual images with a lack of clear cues for the reader's eye to follow, as the boy observer moves more deeply into the labyrinthine building where the man hides. While Memorial's war memorials are complete, public, in good condition and easily accessible, the bewildering passages and openings of Tagged's building suggest the man's stuck memories, the boy's problems with interpreting war images and also a society's not altogether successful attempt to repress collective acknowledgement of its war past. In contrast with Memorial, Tagged is a memorial to the unknown solder, offering a different kind of historical truth to any official, public, empty tomb.' -
More Than Cracking the Code : Postmodern Picture Books and New Literacies
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Crossing the Boundaries 2002; (p. 87-105)
Awards
- 2000 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards
- 2000 honour book CBCA Book of the Year Awards — Picture Book of the Year