Cirrus@Austlit

'Mrs. Margaret Tucker's story- the story of herself, the Aboriginal Lilardia- is the story of the attainment of a dignity beyond oppression, misreprentation, flattery, the desire for approval, and beyond malice. The essence of Aboriginal thought has always been transcendental, and all Aboriginal ritual seeks identification with the creative force in the universer. To Lilardia this creative force is the Holy Spirit. This is a simple tale of humour and sadness, adventure and legend. It is of great historical importance.' (Source: On-Line)

'Look who's at the dog beach!

Strong dogs, long dogs,

Playing dogs, staying dogs,

Black dogs, brown dogs, go-to-town dogs,

Bit-of-a-clown dogs, upside-down dogs,

Mopey dogs, dopey dogs,

Shaggy dogs, waggy dogs ...

'Going to the beach is a big part of Australian culture and, for many people, so are dogs! This book doubles the fun, celebrating all of the different types of dogs that Australians love, from working dogs to lap dogs. Follow them as they run amuck along the sunny shores of Australia.

'With bright and dreamy illustrations by Annie White, this short, rhythmic story will capture the attention of all beach and dog loving children, and even their parents!

'Educational backmatter closes the book, with sections on huskies in Antarctica, guide dogs, farm dogs, and more. Accompanying this text are images of both fun and wacky, and serious and strong dogs found in the National Library of Australia's pictures collections.'  (Publication summary)

'When it comes to flora, Australia is a land of diversity. From rainforests to deserts, mountains to the seashore, 90 per cent of our plant life is unique to this ancient land. Treasures like our wattles, eucalypts, grass trees and banksias are part of our heritage and identity and they still flourish here today, on the oldest landmass on Earth.

'Flora celebrates and highlights these diverse and curious plants, looking into the history, quirks and uses of our native plants, and how vital they are for our unique ecosystems. Tania McCartney brings her trademark skill and style in both writing and illustration, using her substantial experience in children's literature to examine Australia's botanical riches to pick out engaging, informative and surprising facts to share with young readers.

'The book includes spreads on the Gondwana Garden, Deadly Flora, Bush Food, Flora Ancestry and more. Meet the Tasmanian Mountain Ash, which is both the world's tallest flowering plant and the tallest hardwood tree, growing more than a metre each year...for up to 400 years! Share in a park ranger's discovery of a living Jurassic fossil deep in a secret sandstone canyon. Learn how to avoid the most painful plant on earth, the gympie gympie, whose fine little hairs inject a fiery venom that feels like acid and electrocution all at once!

'The author introduces readers to hard science too, including information on plant classification, countless cool scientific facts and binomial names and scientific terms, with a handy glossary aimed at children at the back of the book.' (Publication summary)

'Surveyor Thomas Scott Townsend (1812-1869) is an elusive, almost legendary figure, closer to folklore than to history. His name is given to the country’s second highest mountain, but the details of his career are obscure and his personal identity has remained a mystery.

'Yet, if you live in southern New South Wales or Victoria, there is a good chance that your town or district has been influenced by his work: he covered a huge extent of territory and worked furiously hard in a career that spanned two decades.

'Townsend of the Ranges is a sensitively told, surprisingly dramatic biography of Townsend’s life, from his early days as a junior surveyor in Australia to his time living as a recluse in London before his death. The author has engaged in extensive research of primary sources, relying on letters from estranged family members, Townsends employers and Townsend himself to map the story of his life.

'Accompanied by original maps drawn by Townsend, this book is a beautifully written portrait of a young man fighting loneliness in the wilderness, mapping the watershed crests of the Dividing Ranges and the contours of south-eastern Australia. The narrative also reveals a picture of destruction and violence as settlers and squatters moved across the land.  (Publication summary)

'What we now want from a biography, or autobiography, is the very thing that Virginia Woolf said that we have no right to want: art. Not only art, obviously, but art nevertheless. And we love the illumination of dark corners of the soul, having quite a few of our own, if we're honest with ourselves.' Robert Dessaix

'The Seymour Biography Lecture was presented annually at the Australian National University and the National Library of Australia from 2005 to 2023, by eminent biographers, autobiographers and memoirists. From political profiles to 'tragic poems', this collection of the lectures investigates the philosophical scaffolding that holds up the form of biography and the deft skill required to tell the truth of a life beautifully.

'Over seventeen years, internationally significant authors have spoken on topics such as 'Biography and the Struggle for the Soul of Australia' (Jill Roe, 2007), 'Truth. Truthfulness. Self. Voice.' (Raimond Gaita, 2017) and 'Honouring the Biographer's Contract' (Chris Wallace, 2023). Interrogate the art of life-writing with thoughtfulness, humour and candour along with: Dr Brenda Niall AO Professor Lawrence Goldman Emeritus Professor Jill Roe AO Richard Holmes Dr David Day Professor Frances Spalding CBE Robert Dessaix Professor Jeffrey Meyers Drusilla Modjeska Professor Ray Monk Robert Drewe David Marr Raimond Gaita Richard Fidler Emeritus Professor Judith Brett Jacqueline Kent Professor Chris Wallace'  (Publication summary)

'A smirking boy shuffled past the door, and Marion, hands shaking, quickly turned the key in the lock. It was Cotterson, the boy from Sewers Canal who wanted to burn the Sobraon. Her heart jolted.

'The barge had delivered the Forty Thieves onto the ship!

'Marion’s life is anything but ordinary. The daughter of the principal, Captain Neitenstein, she is the only girl aboard a magnificent floating boys’ school, anchored permanently in Sydney Harbour in the late 1800s. Her best friend has boarded a steamship to France and now it’s just her and this ship full of ragtag schoolboys. One night, Marion discovers that a new student, Alexander Walker, is escaping the ship to meet up with his vicious gang, the Forty Thieves. Marion bravely follows Walker into the frightening Rocks neighbourhood to investigate…What are the Forty Thieves up to and will Marion be able to stop them before it’s too late?

'Based on the real life Marion Neitenstein, this middle-grade ‘faction’, which offers an immersive and historically accurate experience of an unusual nineteenth-century institution for neglected boys. Marion’s middle-class life is contrasted with Sydney slum life and wharf culture. Other important real characters appear, including businessman Quong Tart and the head of the Forty Thieves gang Joseph Bragg.

'The author used primary sources to research the story, such as old gaol inmate records and even Quong Tart’s original menus, and delves into these sources in the endmatter, covering topics such as the Nautical school-ships Vernon and Sobraon and their captains, the Rocks, Quong Tart and more. The text is accompanied by real photographs from the ship, portraits of three Sobraon boys from the admissions book and images of Sydney street scene from the period.' (Publication summary)

'Immortal Solitude by Aaron J Clarke is a haunting tale of love, loss, and the human condition. The story follows a man who has become immortal and powerful by uttering a French prayer to the divine creator of the universe. He watches as the sun destroys the Earth and remembers his past life, where he fell in love with a man named Rylan. The man’s prayer for power and immortality is granted, but at a significant cost. He is forced to watch civilisations rise and fall and the people he once knew and loved fade into oblivion. The story explores love, longing, and the consequences of our actions. Clarke’s writing is evocative and poignant, drawing the reader into the man’s world and making us feel his pain and longing. Immortal Solitude is a powerful and moving story that will stay with you long after reading it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Harry Peters ― formally Hermann Ludwig Pollnow, known to his family as Mutzi ― was born in Berlin in 1920. As a teenager, he fled Nazi Germany and landed in rural Australia. Harry’s parents, Max and Edith, stayed and perished in Nazi camps.

'This story, of forced migration, assimilation, loss, resilience and determination despite the odds, is one that has been lived countless times throughout history and continues to be a common human experience. Harry’s particular experience also tells the history of refugee farmers in rural Australia and migrant labour companies during WWII.

'Scholfield-Peters tells her grandfather’s story with three intertwining threads: a sketched-out history based on Harry’s testimony and documentary history; her engagement with this personal history from a third-generation perspective; and the present story of Harry’s growing infirmities and eventual death in early 2021 at age 100.

'Through the hybrid narrative non-fiction form, Scholfield-Peters investigates her family history and seeks to share an ethical historical account of Harry’s life. This work necessarily skirts the edges of fiction and non-fiction, as Scholfield-Peters weaves her deep research with Harry’s recollections and imagines the unknown details.' (Publication summary)

'Stephanie Owen Reeder’s Heritage Heroes series celebrates stories of incredible survival, persistance and resilience by young people. This book binds together the five original, beloved stories with two brand new ones:

'Brave Bee and the Castaway Kids

Will the Wonderkid and the Elusive Treasure

Amazing Grace and the Sinking Ship

Lennie the Legend and the Remarkable Ride

Marvellous Miss May and the Wondrous Circus

Clever Quong Tart and the New Gold Mountain

Valiant Jane and the Disappearing Trail

'Liz Duthie’s occasional illustrations give young readers a visual springboard for imagining the story, and picturing themselves as these courageous young people.' (Publication summary)

'Christmas is coming and Ayla wants a snowman just like in her book, but there is no snow to be found in her drought-stricken town, not even a drop of rain. Only bales of hay.

'Ayla’s Christmas Wish is inspired by the small, south-west Victorian town of Tarrington, which runs a hay bale design competition each year. This book compares European Christmas traditions with the reality of a hot, dry Australian summer. Behind the story of Ayla wishing for a snowman, there is a town wishing for rain.

'This story celebrates a community at Christmas-time, and highlights the importance and beauty of small-town resilience.' (Publication summary)

'Come and meet the Phonobet, old Alpha Betty’s twin,

'The set of all the sounds you use when waggling your chin.

'Phonobet is a modern-day, Australian answer to Dr Seuss’s ABC. This very clever rhyming text takes an onomatopoeic romp through the 44 phonemes of Australian (and British) English, comparing sounds to trees, bees, trains, robots, monkeys, pirates and more. The text aligns with primary-school phonics programs and could be used by educators in this field, but is equally successful as a fun read-aloud book for parents of 4- to 6-year-olds.

'Children will enjoy Kim Drane’s bold, colourful and fun-filled illustrations, which pop on the page.

'So, once you know the Phonobet, I’m certain that you’ll find

'A wacky world of wonder words with sounds of every kind,

'The sounds are yours to say and sing and twist and taste and chew.

'And then, what should you do with them? Well, that’s up to you.' (Publication summary)

'In Frank, Jordie Albiston has combined daily snapshots from Australian photographic pioneer Frank Hurley's Antarctic diaries into a moving poetry collage. This volume, comprising about 120 poems, offers a portrait of Hurley as photographer and as man, at the end of the heroic era of exploration. Albiston explores the idea that historical narratives can yield a strange and unexpected power when subjected to the pressures of poetic form, and in this way she brings Hurley's thoughts and actions to life in a manner never seen before.

'Frank Hurley accompanied both Mawson and Shackleton on their celebrated expeditions to Antarctica in the early twentieth century. Hurley's polar diaries, held at the National Library of Australia, represent a written adjunct to his pictorial surveys of what was then a geographical, cultural and artistic unknown.

'Frank is a beautiful, evocative and highly accessible volume that will delight both poetry readers and those interested in Antarctica and Hurley. The poems were written and compiled during the author's tenure as the National Library of Australia's 2021 Creative Arts Fellow in Australian Writing. Jordie Albiston sadly passed away during the production of Frank; NLA Publishing is proud to now be realising her vision.'

'The poems in Judith Wright's Birds volume have long been recognised as among the best-loved poems written in Australia. Many people have grown up with the beguiling rhythms of 'Black Cockatoos', or the jauntiness of 'The Wagtail'. Now, in this new edition, commemorating 25 years since the poems were last published as a single collection, these works appear with six additional poems and a personal introduction by the poet's daughter Meredith McKinney, for whom many of the poems were written. The poems are complemented by full-colour illustrations drawn from the National Library's Pictures Collection, featuring the work of artists such as John Lewin, Lionel Lindsay, Lilian Medland, William T. Cooper and Betty Temple Watts. 'Birds' is both a celebration of Judith Wright (1915-2000) as writer and passionate environmentalist, and of the centrality of birds in the poet's imagination. ' (Publication summary)

'In Bold Types , Patricia Clarke recounts the chequered journey of women journalists in the fight for gender equality from 1860 to the end of World War II. These were independent, adventurous women who ventured far and wide in search of news, relevance and equality.

'Together, stories of women from Anna Blackwell and Flora Shaw to Janet Mitchell and Caroline Isaacson, illustrate the gains and setbacks of women journalists over nearly a century. In each successive story, the tenacious determination of these women stands clear against the background of the prevailing patriarchy.

'Patricia Clarke was a trailblazer herself as the only woman on the Melbourne staff at the Australian News and Information Bureau in the early 1950s. In a detailed epilogue, Patricia shares stories of her own life and career in the days of crowded newsrooms, clattering typewriters, and overflowing cigarette trays.

'The book also features an introduction by Amy Remeikis, political reporter at The Guardian Australia , who reflects on the struggles and achievements of her early counterparts as well as the current working environment for women journalists.

'Bold Types is a book that will resound with and inspire today’s audience, in a world where women are still fighting for equal rights and often, respect in the workplace.'  (Publication summary)

'Alec Bolton and His Brindabella Press is an account of a passion: that of a publisher and the books he made for himself and his friends, keeping alive craft traditions that were threatened by unrelenting change.'

‘Printing is like religion’, Alec Bolton once said. ‘We live in sin, but with the hope of perfection before us.’ And while his life circled around books and writing generally, it was above all with his private press, the Brindabella Press, that he won acclaim as an Australian book arts practitioner. He worked with modest resources from a lost era of letterpress printing, mostly on the weekends, in a small printery at his home in Canberra. Starting with one-page poems and pamphlets, he sought always to print better books. His editions of writers such as Barbara Hanrahan, Les A. Murray and Kenneth Slessor are now scarce and sought after. They are important to any serious collection of fine Australian books. At the heart of everything was the poet Rosemary Dobson, his wife, who first suggested he take up letterpress printing and who wrote three of the Press’s most lovely books.

'The transformation of the publishing program at the National Library of Australia is also part of the story told in this biography of one of Australia’s great creative publishers, based on the Bolton Papers at the Library. Branching out from the traditional biography format, A Maker of Books: Alec Bolton and His Brindabella Press illuminates the story of this talented creator through examining key works produced by the Brindabella Press, creating an innovative ‘bibliobiography’. (Publication summary) 

'Australians have long been tempted by the lure of the ice to the south, and our Antarctic stories are filled with mystery, exploration, adventure, ground-breaking science, tragedy, and triumph.

'The Antarctic region was taking shape in the Australian imagination long before humans ventured into the high southern latitudes. Through their stories about ice and wind, ocean and wildlife, light and darkness, Australians found ways to make sense of the mysterious realm to their south. In the process, they created powerful cultural connections between these two Gondwanan cousins that endure to this day.

'The stories of the early intrepid explorers to brave this ‘most desolate, cruellest region in the world’ are thrilling. The legendary Douglas Mawson and his teams had to learn to first crawl, and then walk, through hurricane-force winds, dig exit tunnels through the snow, and haul heavily laden sledges across treacherous fields of crevasses. Despite the extreme conditions and isolation though, there was always a great heartening aspect that these adventurers brought to their endeavours. Whether it was the morale-boosting songs during the sledging journeys, the joyous return of the penguins in spring, or the much- treasured tradition of Midwinter’s Day (involving a sumptuous banquet, extravagant attire and a theatrical performance), Australians have always found the warmth of camaraderie in this absolute coldest of places. This spirit has continued through the 20th century and into the 21st, with Australians establishing scientific Antarctic bases and continuing to make vital contributions to the world’s knowledge of earth science and climate change.

'Ice Bound is an exciting and comprehensive account of Australian stories in Antarctica, from the very first imaginings of what may lie to the south, to the inspiring early expeditions onto the unknown continent, through to the remarkable and valuable scientific work that is still going strong today. Generously illustrated with stunning contemporary imagery, as well as fascinating historical photos from the early expeditions, Ice Bound will fill the reader with awe for this spectacular continent, and bring alive the Aussie stories that have taken place there. (Publication summary)

'Penny has a massive imagination. She loves to draw up plans, gather her tools and turn sketches and scribbles into new creations.

'One day, she visits her grandpa’s house and is amazed at his gadgets and gizmos. He has a telephone hanging on his wall, an organ with bellows to pump and a contraption with a handle to churn homemade butter.

'Then Penny discovers grandpa’s garage …

'Christopher Cheng’s The Imagineer is a beautiful story about an inquisitive little girl whose imagination is sparked by the things around her. It also highlights the value in spending time with a grandparent and learning from their lived experience.'  (Publication summary)