Last week it was announced that National NAIDOC Week 2020 celebrations will now be held from 8-15 November, instead of this week. This decision has been made due to the impacts and uncertainty from the ongoing public health crisis. Regardless, now still feels like a critical time to be reading First Nations voices. Here, some of our staff share their picks for what book you could be reading in July.
“We are lucky to have some brilliant First Nations poets here in Australia, including Ellen van Neerven, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Samuel Wagan Watson whose work I’ll be revisiting this week. And if you can’t think of a poet you particularly love, why not check out Fire Front? This poetry anthology features the work of Australian First Nations writers – including the three I’ve mentioned above!”
– Ellen Cregan
“If you haven’t already, this month is the perfect time to read Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia as Black Inc. and Readings are each donating $2 from every sale of print copies of this terrific anthology to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Buy one for yourself and a friend.”
– Nina Kenwood
“I’m a big fan of Ambelin Kwaymullina’s books for kids and teens. Catching Teller Crow (co-written with her brother, Ezekiel Kwaymullina) is one of the best YA books I’ve ever read – highly imaginative, utterly gripping and a wonderful testament to the transformative powers of storytelling. She’s just released her first work of non-fiction, Living on Stolen Land, which is a series of critical reflections on decolonisation and transformation. I’m really excited to be able to read it this month.”
– Bronte Coates
“I’m excited to see this month’s rerelease of Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s dissection of white feminism, Talkin’ Up To The White Woman, which was first published 20 years ago. It’s an analysis of the whiteness of Australian feminism and its effect on Indigenous women, and I’m glad to have the chance to read it now.”
– Lian Hingee
“If you have young kids you’d like to read to during NAIDOC week, there are some wonderful picture books by First Nations creators out there. Little Bird’s Day is a real favourite. It’s a very gentle and poetic story written by Sally Morgan and illustrated by Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr. Readers follow Little Bird as she interacts with the natural world: Cloud, Rain and Wind. The artwork is sublime, depicting flowers, wallabies, goannas, echidnas, turtles, frogs and more in rich, earthy colours. Malibirr won Magabala Books’ inaugural Kestin Indigenous Illustrators Award, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the upcoming book illustrated by the 2019 winner, Charmaine Ledden-Lewis. It’s called Found, and is written by Bruce Pascoe. Look out for it next month.”
– Leanne Hall
