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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Welcome to Country single work   picture book   children's  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Welcome to Country
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This is an expansive and generous Welcome to Country from a most respected Elder, Aunty Joy Murphy, beautifully given form by Indigenous artist Lisa Kennedy.

'Welcome to the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri People. We are part of this land and the land is part of us. This is where we come from. Wominjeka Wurundjeri balluk yearmenn koondee bik. Welcome to Country.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Exhibitions

10993378
9450988
9632061
7720721

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable ForAC: Year 3 (NSW Stage 2)

DurationThis is an extensive unit that might take up to 6 weeks

Curriculum Summary

Find a summary table for Australian Curriculum: English content descriptions and NSW Syllabus outcomes for this unit.

Themes

Aboriginal history and culture, Books by Indigenous creators, connection to place, connection to the natural world, connections to Country, Respect, the environment

General Capabilities

Ethical understanding, Intercultural understanding

Cross-curriculum Priorities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Sustainability

Teaching Resources

Teaching Resources

This work has teaching resources.

Teaching resources via publisher's website.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Newtown, Marrickville - Camperdown area, Sydney Southern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Black Dog Books , 2016 .
      image of person or book cover 3518673861252826316.jpeg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 32p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 August 2016.
      ISBN: 9781922244871
    • Massachusetts,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Candlewick Press ,
      2018 .
      image of person or book cover 1692878968919918566.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 32 p.p.
      Description: col. illus.
      Note/s:
      • Published January 2018.

      ISBN: 9780763694999
    • Newtown, Marrickville - Camperdown area, Sydney Southern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Walker Books Australia , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 6142423911869438308.jpeg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 26p.p.
      Edition info: Board book
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 April 2020.
      ISBN: 9781760652005
    • Newtown, Marrickville - Camperdown area, Sydney Southern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Walker Books Australia , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 9175710995694000593.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Edition info: Slipcase edition
      Description: col. illus.
      Note/s:
      • Published 5th November 2020.
      ISBN: 9781760652173

Works about this Work

5 First Nations Picture Books for Australian Children to Read during NAIDOC Week – or Any Time Emerson Zerafa-Payne , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 10 July 2024;

'Books are powerful tools for educating and empowering children about the histories, achievements and ongoing contributions of First Nations peoples to Australian society.'

'We Feel the Roots of This Land Beneath the Soles of Our Bare Feet” : A Diffractive Reading of Plant Representation in Welcome to Country and The Rabbits Lykke Guanio-Uluru , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Storying Plants in Australian Children's and Young Adult Literature : Roots and Winged Seeds 2023; (p. 51-73)

'The picturebooks Welcome to Country: A Traditional Aboriginal Ceremony by Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy (2016) and The Rabbits (2008/2020) by John Marsden and Shaun Tan both thematise human relationships to land, from differing cultural viewpoints. Here, I investigate the role played by plants in the representation of the human-to-land interrelationship in the two works. Inspired by a diffractive reading methodology, I explore how both picturebooks, although they sprout from differing cultural epistemologies, draw on the power of trees to symbolise and explain cultural and ecological relationships. Since the two primary texts establish their own life world governed by differing epistemologies—and since uncovering this as a significant part of the analysis—I do not approach the texts with the same analytical lens. Rather, focussing on plant representation, I draw on the stories of Aboriginal Elders in my reading of Welcome to Country and on perspectives from colonial botany to discuss The Rabbits.' (Publication abstract)

Aboriginal Australian Picturebooks : Ceremonial Listening to Plants Brooke Collins-Gearing , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Storying Plants in Australian Children's and Young Adult Literature : Roots and Winged Seeds 2023; (p. 35-50)

'Walking through the Australian bush is a walk through a living library. From the moment the Ancestors moved through Country, creating all the sentient beings, we can still see today, and those that we can’t, Australian plants and trees have held both physical and psychic, tangible and sacred knowledges. This chapter explores the possible portals of access that are opened to hearing the stories and languages of Australian plants and trees when shared by Aboriginal Australian peoples through the form of the picturebook. Such contemporary Australian books weave with ancient ways of knowing to create nurturing spaces for all readers to see, touch, smell, hold and taste the world around them. Through their own forms of Story and Language, plants and trees give insight into medicines, tools and food, as well as kinship, seasons and ceremony. When woven with picturebook modalities, they encourage embodied relationships with non-human and more-than-human elements of Country.' (Publication abstract)

Embedding Indigenous Perspectives in Reviewing Welcome to Country with Australian High-School Students: Chenoa Masters , Jo Lampert , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Jeunesse : Young People, Texts, Culture , Winter vol. 8 no. 2 2016; (p. 142-151)

— Review of Welcome to Country Joy Wandin Murphy , 2016 single work picture book

'The writing of this book review and the unusual form it ultimately took came about because of a variety of fortuitous coincidences. To begin with, I was asked if I was interested in writing a review of Indigenous children’s literature for this journal. I was interested, but as a non-Indigenous woman, I felt it would be a better, more accurate review if written by an Indigenous reviewer, so I gave the editors some potential names. The same week, the Ashgrove Children’s Literature Festival in Brisbane, Australia, contacted me and asked if I would like to run a workshop at a private secondary school during Literature Week. I have been involved for some time in the work of embedding Indigenous perspectives in curricula, so an opportunity to apply them to an “authentic” school-based workshop as part of a literary festival seemed too good an opportunity to forgo. The third coincidence: I was getting to know Chenoa Masters, an impressive young Indigenous pre-service teacher. And so this project came together. Chenoa and I decided that we would lead the workshop and review a new Indigenous-authored picture book, Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy’s Welcome to Country, together with the high-school students who took part in the workshop. In the process, we would all engage in what we expected would be an authentic book-reviewing workshop (authentic because it was to be published), with a genuine reason to embed Indigenous perspectives.' (Introduction)

Welcome to Country : Aunty Joy Murphy Merle Morcom , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , October 2016; (p. 60)

— Review of Welcome to Country Joy Wandin Murphy , 2016 single work picture book
Review : Welcome to Country Katharine England , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 1 October 2016; (p. 36)

— Review of Welcome to Country Joy Wandin Murphy , 2016 single work picture book
Welcome to Country : Aunty Joy Murphy Merle Morcom , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , October 2016; (p. 60)

— Review of Welcome to Country Joy Wandin Murphy , 2016 single work picture book
Embedding Indigenous Perspectives in Reviewing Welcome to Country with Australian High-School Students: Chenoa Masters , Jo Lampert , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Jeunesse : Young People, Texts, Culture , Winter vol. 8 no. 2 2016; (p. 142-151)

— Review of Welcome to Country Joy Wandin Murphy , 2016 single work picture book

'The writing of this book review and the unusual form it ultimately took came about because of a variety of fortuitous coincidences. To begin with, I was asked if I was interested in writing a review of Indigenous children’s literature for this journal. I was interested, but as a non-Indigenous woman, I felt it would be a better, more accurate review if written by an Indigenous reviewer, so I gave the editors some potential names. The same week, the Ashgrove Children’s Literature Festival in Brisbane, Australia, contacted me and asked if I would like to run a workshop at a private secondary school during Literature Week. I have been involved for some time in the work of embedding Indigenous perspectives in curricula, so an opportunity to apply them to an “authentic” school-based workshop as part of a literary festival seemed too good an opportunity to forgo. The third coincidence: I was getting to know Chenoa Masters, an impressive young Indigenous pre-service teacher. And so this project came together. Chenoa and I decided that we would lead the workshop and review a new Indigenous-authored picture book, Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy’s Welcome to Country, together with the high-school students who took part in the workshop. In the process, we would all engage in what we expected would be an authentic book-reviewing workshop (authentic because it was to be published), with a genuine reason to embed Indigenous perspectives.' (Introduction)

Aboriginal Australian Picturebooks : Ceremonial Listening to Plants Brooke Collins-Gearing , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Storying Plants in Australian Children's and Young Adult Literature : Roots and Winged Seeds 2023; (p. 35-50)

'Walking through the Australian bush is a walk through a living library. From the moment the Ancestors moved through Country, creating all the sentient beings, we can still see today, and those that we can’t, Australian plants and trees have held both physical and psychic, tangible and sacred knowledges. This chapter explores the possible portals of access that are opened to hearing the stories and languages of Australian plants and trees when shared by Aboriginal Australian peoples through the form of the picturebook. Such contemporary Australian books weave with ancient ways of knowing to create nurturing spaces for all readers to see, touch, smell, hold and taste the world around them. Through their own forms of Story and Language, plants and trees give insight into medicines, tools and food, as well as kinship, seasons and ceremony. When woven with picturebook modalities, they encourage embodied relationships with non-human and more-than-human elements of Country.' (Publication abstract)

'We Feel the Roots of This Land Beneath the Soles of Our Bare Feet” : A Diffractive Reading of Plant Representation in Welcome to Country and The Rabbits Lykke Guanio-Uluru , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Storying Plants in Australian Children's and Young Adult Literature : Roots and Winged Seeds 2023; (p. 51-73)

'The picturebooks Welcome to Country: A Traditional Aboriginal Ceremony by Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy (2016) and The Rabbits (2008/2020) by John Marsden and Shaun Tan both thematise human relationships to land, from differing cultural viewpoints. Here, I investigate the role played by plants in the representation of the human-to-land interrelationship in the two works. Inspired by a diffractive reading methodology, I explore how both picturebooks, although they sprout from differing cultural epistemologies, draw on the power of trees to symbolise and explain cultural and ecological relationships. Since the two primary texts establish their own life world governed by differing epistemologies—and since uncovering this as a significant part of the analysis—I do not approach the texts with the same analytical lens. Rather, focussing on plant representation, I draw on the stories of Aboriginal Elders in my reading of Welcome to Country and on perspectives from colonial botany to discuss The Rabbits.' (Publication abstract)

5 First Nations Picture Books for Australian Children to Read during NAIDOC Week – or Any Time Emerson Zerafa-Payne , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 10 July 2024;

'Books are powerful tools for educating and empowering children about the histories, achievements and ongoing contributions of First Nations peoples to Australian society.'

Last amended 19 Aug 2020 13:21:56
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