Neil Murray: My Island Home (ISBN: 9780980564334), Archie Roach: Took the Children Away (ISBN: 9780980564341), Shane Howard: Solid Rock (ISBN: 9780980564327). All published by One Day Hill, 2010, with paintings by Peter Hudson.
Children's business is serious business. It often makes adults angry. You have only to think about the debates about teaching literacy or history. Or of the defensive responses to the uncovering of the experience of the Stolen Generations and to the detention of asylum seeker children. Not to mention to the sexual abuse of children and more recently to reports of the tasering of children.
The suffering of children opens a door into the hardness of society. We are forced to see practices that we take for granted in a different light. And as we are pressed to change our perspective, we can easily react angrily or defensively by denying the truth of events and minimising the harm that people suffer. Societies try to close doors that open on to vulnerability. They try to control children's business.
These three little books do children's business. The text of each is a popular song through which mainstream Australian audiences became more aware of Indigenous Australians.
Archie Roach's 'Took the Children Away' tells the story of the stolen generations. Shane Howard's 'Solid Rock' is a song about dispossession. Neil Murray's 'My Island Home' tells of the lonnging for the sea felt by a man from Elcho Island, now living in Central Australia.
The books are splendid fare for young children. The rhythmic words are simple and are spread through the book, a line or two to a page. They are accompanied by carefully chosen and thematic paintings by Peter Hudson, and by drawings by children in the communities associated with the songs. Ruby Hunter, Archie Roach's late partner, provides haunting illustrations for Took the Children Away.
Together, songs and pictures create a vivid imaginative world that is both strong and gentle. For adult readers, Martin Flanagan's simple and informed introductions place the works into their rich human context. All that is missing in each book is a CD of the song.
These children's books also do serious business. They make us ask how we should encourage our children to see their world and