 Hi everyone my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher and today I am really excited to share with you something I've been meaning to do for a while which is a bit of a tour of my Aboriginal and First Nations picture books from here in Australia. I thought it would be a really great time to share them with you because it is NAIDOC week next week and while some of these books will be familiar to some people, other people may not be as familiar with them and while I'm not going to be going into depth with all of them because there's a lot of them, I do just want to at least bring them up and then if there is a book that you would like me to spend a little bit more time unpacking on this channel you can definitely ask me to do that in the comments, I would be very happy to. This is one of my favourite picture book collections, it spans this shelf and up to here so about halfway through and the books that I've collected sort of over the last 20 years I think they are amazing books, they are sometimes different to traditional picture books and sometimes they are written in a style that is really similar and they are a great way of opening conversations, of learning a little bit about a culture particularly because I'm not an Indigenous person but I teach students and part of our curriculum is to teach intercultural studies including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and stories and literature so yeah I thought I would share them with you and then again as I said if there's anything that you would like me to do a formal review of please let me know. So first up we have my Bronwyn Bancroft collection, so there is Colours of Australia, Patterns of Australia, Shapes of Australia, Why I Love Australia, The Art in Animals and Coming Home to Country. Bronwyn Bancroft is just an iconic Aboriginal artist and her books are absolutely beautiful full of vibrant colours and shapes and a really great way to start looking at and learning a little bit about Aboriginal art. I also have a few Greg Dries books, one I've talked about recently is Hello and Welcome and then I have some of his dreaming stories, so there is Awesome Inu, Kuku Kukabara, Cutting Crow, Silly Birds and Mad Magpie. All of these again have really great illustrations, lots of bright colours and stories that teach us something. One book series that I have talked a lot about is the Welcome to Our Country series by Adam Goods, Ellie Lang and David Hardy. I've talked about these lots on both my channels. The first book is Somebody's Land, the second one is Ceremony and the first one is Back on Country. These are fairly recent release picture books, they started coming out last year. I thoroughly, thoroughly adore them. The fourth one is coming out I think in October and I'm really excited about it. These ones are a little bit more of a traditional narrative. They're often stories about children who are exploring their Indigenous heritage and going back to country and spending time with family. They're just really great books with David Hardy's awesome illustrations. Again, I have a full review of all three of these books, I'll leave that link on the screen. I also have Big Rain coming by Katrina Germain. This one is illustrated by Bronwyn Bancroft and again is another really gorgeous picture book. Here is another David Hardy book, this is Alfie's Big Wish. It's absolutely beautiful, David Hardy illustrated and wrote this book. I absolutely love it. There's a few more in the series that I haven't got yet and I need to pick them up because this is just a really joyful exploration of friendship as Alfie wishes for a friend. I have two collaborations between Sally Morben and Ezekiel Quimallana. These are really gorgeous stories. There is We All Sleep and My Country. We have Walking in Gagajew Country, Exploring the Monsoon Forest by Dan Lucas, Ben Tyler and Emma Long. This one is a non-fiction book that explores the monsoon forest quite literally and gives us lots and lots of detail and it's told mostly through conversations between these characters as well as giving us facts about what we're seeing. There is Finding Our Heart, a story about the Uluru statement for young Australians by Thomas Mayer and illustrations by Black Douglas. This one, as it says, goes into the Uluru statement for young Australians which is really, really important and this book is a really gorgeous way for kids to explore it. There is Daybreak by Amy Maguire with Matt Chan and this is about January 26th which is known as Australia Day here but it does deal with why that day is very, very problematic for our First Nations people. It's not traditionally a day that I celebrate anymore as an adult now that I know the history behind it so this is a really powerful book. A really fun one is My Deadly Boots by Carl Merrison and Hakeah Hustler. I think I've spoken about this on the channel. Really fun book about an Aboriginal boy who gets new footy boots. I have some more Sally Morgan books so there is Thank You Rain, The River, Bush Bash and this one was written with Amalyn Quay-Mulliner. There is In Your Dreams and this one was written with Bronwyn Bancroft. There is Where Is It Galar and also This Is Me. All of Sally Morgan's books are gorgeous. Along with Bronwyn Bancroft, she's probably the author illustrator that I am most familiar with from my own childhood and seeing her books around for many years and now I have started my own collection of some of her new works. I have two books by Auntie Joy Murphy. The first one I think is one that every Australian should have in their home in some form or another and in fact I just bought this for my sister for her future baby and it is Welcome to Country. This is Auntie Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy and it is a Welcome to Country ceremony. It is told and explained in a way that makes it accessible for younger readers to understand what a Welcome to Country ceremony is. You may have noticed at the start of my videos I have an acknowledgement of country. I have that at the start of all of my videos. An acknowledgement of country is when a non-indigenous person acknowledges the land on which we are gathered and a Welcome to Country is when the elders of the people who are from that country welcome outsiders to the land and it is absolutely beautiful and the one thing that I love about this is that it is in the language of the Warrantory people who are the people who were the traditional owners of Melbourne, Australia. Many of my dual language Indigenous picture books are from different parts around Australia. I don't have that many from Melbourne or Nam which is its traditional place name. So I'm really grateful to have Welcome to Country and also Willam which is a Birawang story and they are just stunning, stunning books. I absolutely love them. I was very excited to give my sister a copy of it. I have Baby Business by Jasmine Seymour and to be honest this is another one I want to get for my sister for her baby. I just need to find a board book copy of it. It is absolutely a gorgeous book. There is Nini Yabini by Cheryl Kicklett-Tuckler and there is Young Dark, In You a Truer History by Bruce Pascoe. There is an adult version of this book. This is the younger readers version, very powerful but for older readers. I also have Found by Bruce Pascoe. This gorgeous book is called Two Mates. It's by Melanie Pruitt and illustrated by Maggie Pruitt. It is about two friends, one who is an Indigenous boy and one who is a boy who has a physical disability. There is Story Doctors by Buri Monty Pryor and also My Nappaja, My Grandad by Karen Rogers. One of the first books that I picked up for my classroom and I found it second hand was A's for Aunty by Elaine Rogers. This is an alphabet book and it is absolutely beautiful. There is Open Your Heart to Country by Jasmine Seymour. Just a stunning book. Jasmine Seymour also does amazing things and I'm just now realizing that I put some of my books in the wrong order because this is the second Jasmine Seymour book that I've talked about. There is Mollie the Pirate by Lorraine Tease and illustrated by Paul Seiden and this is just a really fun story about a little girl who dreams of being a pirate. This one is a really cool one. This is Tanki Juta Donkeys and it is Stories and Sculptures by the Champi Desert Weavers and the thing I love about this is the illustrations have all been created by these woven sculptures that have been posed for photos. I will not try and butcher this because I have not quite worked out the pronunciation yet but it is Family, illustrated by Janine Turner and Maria Palmer and Amanda Turner. It is a counting book and it is a dual language story and it is a great little book to have. One book that I recommend that everyone get if you are even remotely interested in Indigenous history, particularly in the classroom, is The First Scientist by Corey Tutt and illustrated by Black Douglas. This book goes through Indigenous science from Day Dot and is amazing. It also has the ATSS map on the front which has all the different language groups in the different countries for Australia's Aboriginal people. Much bigger one than in some of my other books so I really love that but it goes through Aboriginal astronomers, engineers, scientists, forensic scientists, chemists, land managers and ecologists because as one of the oldest living cultures they had all of these and so they were some of the first scientists. Absolutely incredible, it is a really easy read. Most topics only have one double page spread so it's very easy to get through information that you need to. There is Sorry Day by Coral Vass and Deb Luffler again talking about Sorry, National Sorry Day from an Indigenous Lens. Another great non-fiction book is Heroes, Rebels and Innovators, Inspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People from History by Karen Wilde and Jalen by My Way. I'm sorry if I butcher that. Great book if you're looking to find out about different iconic people from Indigenous history. This is Hello, Hello by the Children from the Spinifex Writing Camp so this was written by students in collaboration with Thing by singer-songwriter Chris Aitken and it's about a group of children walking home at night and seeing strange shadows and hearing eerie noises and wondering what it is. There is I Saw, We Saw by the Yole New Students of Nillen Bay Primary School with Anne James and Anne Haddon so again this was a book co-created with students. We're nearly there. There is Our Island by the Children of Gunana with Alison Lester and Elizabeth Honey. Again another story written in collaboration with students in remote schools. They're some of my favourite books and the kids love to see it because it's often the kids artwork. I have a couple of Indigenous graphic novels. There is Exo Dimensions by Seraphina Newbury, Store Morning by Lauren Boyle and Alyssa Mason and Mixed Feelings by Declan Miller and then these ones are probably familiar to a lot of people. You tend to be able to find these in the post office. They are dreaming stories so this is Dumbie the Owl, The Bat and the Crocodile, The Kidna and the Shade Tree, The Kangaroo and the Porpoise, How the Tasmanian Tiger Got Its Stripes and Warniyara, The Rainbow Snake. All right so those are the Aboriginal and First Nations books that I have on my shelf. I probably have a few at school but this is the majority of my collection and I really love all of these books. I'm so glad that I have started collecting them and I will continue to collect them. I'm always on the lookout for new Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and First Nations picture books so this collection will be added too and I can't wait. As I said if you would like to hear any more about any specific books let me know down below. Otherwise I will leave some links to some information on NAIDOC Week down below. I hope that wherever you are in the world you're staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.