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Date: 2009-2011
Date: 2008-2011
Date: 2008-2010
Date: 2008
Date: 2008-2011
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 Children's Literature Digital Resources
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Contents

* Contents derived from the St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,:AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2008 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Representations of Aboriginal Australians in a Selection of CLDR Texts, Cherie Allan , website bibliography
Many of the texts in the CLDR full text collection represent Aboriginal Australians from a colonist or imperial point of view. These representations typically rely on a number of stereotypes including depicting Aboriginal characters as childlike, comic relief or the fool, uncivilised savages or sly, cunning manipulators. Other texts exclude any reference to Aboriginal peoples and thus create a silence around the original inhabitants of Australia thereby reinforcing the notion of terra nullius. This Trail endeavours to raise awareness of these representations and promote resistance to them. It is centred on a number of journal articles which interrogate these representations (Bradford) and/or provide alternative readings of the texts (Collins-Gearing).
Raising Awareness of the Environment in Early Australian (CLDR) Children's Texts : A Focus on the Works of Louisa Anne Meredith, Cherie Allan , website bibliography
Louisa Anne Meredith's Tasmanian texts for children combine prose, poetry, and drawings (both botanical and decorative) to sing the praises of Nature. Her message is one of wonderment at the beauty and diversity of nature as well as respect for the environment. These sentiments are influenced by her belief that nature has a strong spiritual connection to a 'higher power'. Kordula Dunscombe (1998) argues in her article on the works of Meredith that "It is heartening to look back on C19th colonial literature for children and see, amongst the messages of domination, exploitation and general disrespect for the environment, that other paradigms of the land were also offered to child readers." It is the intention of this Learning Trail to present a number of resources that will provide material for those with an interest in ecocriticism in children's and young adult literature to explore the extent to which these other paradigms were offered. These early texts can then be examined in the light of contemporary environmental texts available to young readers today. The Trail focuses on the work of Louisa Anne Meredith but includes a number of other CLDR texts which display a range of early attitudes to the environment.
Children Lost in the Bush, Michelle Dicinoski , website bibliography

The figure of the lost child is a persistent one in Australian literature. In the mid-to-late 19th century, incidents of children lost in the bush received significant press coverage, and they were also the subject of artists' renderings and fictionalised re-tellings in poems and stories. The most famous case of children lost in the bush is that of the Duff children, who went missing in the Wimmera region of Victoria in 1864. Isaac (aged nine), Jane (aged seven), and Frank (aged almost four) spent nine days lost in the bush before being rescued by indigenous trackers. If we examine some of the numerous re-tellings, drawings, and paintings of the incident, we can see how writers and artists gradually made Jane Duff the hero of the story, virtually ignoring the courage of Isaac and Frank Duff, and the skill of the trackers who actually saved the children's lives. This trail leads you through newspaper reports, art work, poems, shorts stories, and full-length works that tell or re-tell the Duffs' story. It also includes critical work that examines these primary texts, or the figure of the lost child more generally in Australian literature. Most of the primary works listed here can be read immediately online, because they have been digitised as part of the Children's Literature Digital Resources project. You can read more about CLDR by going to austlit.edu.au/CLDR.
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