Nyuntu Ninti: Bob Randall & Melanie Hogan

Based on the award-winning documentary Kanyini, this quite stunning book is a sort of photographic prose poem about ‘the ancient and spiritual culture that is the very heart and soul of Australia’ (to quote the blurb). Although very simply told – three or four lines of text per page – and accessible to very young children, it is profoundly illuminating, and indeed thought-provoking. Take this, for example: ‘As we walked over country,/We didn’t worry about building houses./You don’t need a house when you’re alive./You can move and you can leave it behind.’ If we want to learn to respect a culture so different from our own, this is a great place to start. It really is nyuntu ninti – what (we) should know.