Cirrus@Austlit

'How did the early European settlers talk to their children about Australia’s unique and unfamiliar landscape? What types of stories and images did they create to characterise and make sense of its strange fauna and flora? As a natural history illustrator, writer and avid reader I wanted to explore how the Australian environment, filled with new and unfamiliar species, was characterised in text and illustrations in children’s books in the 19th century and into the 20th century. ‘From curious creatures to bushland beasts: a graphic novel exploring representations of Australian fauna and flora in early Australian children’s book publishing’ was the title I proposed for my Children’s Literature Fellowship, undertaken at State Library Victoria in 2016–17. My aim was to view a selection of Australian children’s books, to discover how Australian fauna and flora were portrayed in both text and illustrations, and then to develop a creative response in the form of a graphic novel. My research method was to be autoethnographic: I would note and sketch my responses to the works I viewed.' 

 (Introduction)