Cirrus@Austlit

'Schools in NSW were closing in March 2020, and children beginning home learning, a challenge for them, their teachers and their parents. I have always been a proponent of reading aloud so the phone call should not have come as a surprise.' (Introduction)

'If we care about the role of reading in opening up young minds to new ideas and viewpoints, surely it is vital to have access to books from other languages and cultures. Some of the books firmly established on our shelves spring to mind ; Pippi Longstocking, Finn Family Moomintroll, the Neverending Story, The Little Prince. But a closer look at titles bought and borrowed by young Australian Readers today confirms two worries that I brought to the topic ; that the proportion of translated books is till small, and that very few of them have been translated here in Australia.' (Introduction)

'Small, independent imprints have made a valuable contribution to the publishing of books for children in Australia. Such publishers have often been likened to mushrooms, springing up on the forest floor when conditions are right, making good use of the nutritious spaces left by the  -often non-native -giant trees.' (Introduction)

'After service in World War II, he trained as a teacher and continued studying literature throughout his long life; helped found the Children's Book Council of Australia; and passionately supported the development of school libraries. Wherever he went, former students would greet him with 'Maurie, you taught me to know and love books!' When Ena Noël founded IBBY Australia in the 1960s, Maurice immediately gave support; over the following decades, he provided continuity for succeeding IBBY Australia presidents, and in recent years he gave wise advice and encouragement to Jenni Woodroffe and me and our colleagues.' (Publication abstract)

'When a full account of the rise and fall of the printed book is written, the year 2010 will be seen as a turning point. It had become clear to even a mildly interested observer that the book as physical object was under siege. To read long-text books and journal or news articles, many people were turning to tablets and e-books; even I had begun to read Dickens novels on an iPad. But the picture book was mounting a powerful defensive skirmish. Lane Smith’s It’s a Book! appeared in the US, with cartoon animals asking ‘Do you scroll down? Does it need a password? No, it’s a book!’, a reminder that, as Adam Gopnik wrote about it,’what books do depends on the totality of what they are’. In Australia, where picture books have for decades been both innovative and respected, books without words were among leaders of the charge. The Picture Book of the Year award in 2010 went to Gregory Rogers’ wordless The Hero of Little Street; three years earlier the winner had been Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, an album of 128 pages, with nary a word except for some signs in an invented language.'