'My Place, the classic Australian picture book, is a "time machine" which takes the reader back into the past. It depicts the history of one particular piece of land in Sydney from 1788 to 1988 through the stories of the various children who have lived there. It aims to teach the reader about the history of Australia, about families, settlers, multiculturalism, and the traditional owners of the land. Each child's story covers a decade in time, showing their particular dress, customs and family life.
'The book also features maps that the successive generations of children have 'drawn' which demonstrate the things that have changed - as well as the things that have remained constant. My Place ultimately aims to show "that everyone is part of History" and that "every place has a story as old as the earth".' -- Provided by publisher (2008 ed.)
My Place
( dir. Shawn Seet
et. al. )agent
Australia
:
Little Leaf Pictures
Matchbox Pictures
ABC Television
,
2009-2011
Z1649817
2009-2011
series - publisher
film/TV
children's
historical fiction
My Place, based on the award-winning book My Place by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, is a thirteen-part drama series that tells the story of one house in South Sydney through the experiences of the children who live there over a 130-year period. My Place aims to show that everyone is part of history and that every place has a story.
My Place Series One
( dir. Jessica Hobbs
et. al. )agent
2009
8891658
2009
single work
film/TV
'My Place, the much loved Australian children's classic, tells the story of the children who live in one place over 130 years. In Volume One, meet Laura who's struggling to own up to her actions. It's 2008 and the Prime Minister is trying to do the same with her mob. Mohammed is into cricket, when he can't join the boys' team he ends up on the girls' side and they're a force to be reckoned with. ' (Source: TROVE)
My Place : Series Two
( dir. Rachel Ward
et. al. )agent
2011
8891899
2011
single work
film/TV
The story of one place on earth told by the children who live there from 1878 to before white settlement. The second part of MY PLACE, the series is based on the Nadia Wheatley/ Donna Rawlins book. (Source: Screen Australia website)
Unit Suitable For:
AC: Years 3 and 4 (NSW Stage 2)
General Capabilities
Ethical understanding, Intercultural understanding, Literacy, Personal and social
Teaching resources via publisher's website.
Making My Place : Behind the Scenes of the Television Series
Pymble
:
ABC Books
,
2010
Z1697529
2010
single work
criticism
My Place for Teachers
Australian Children's Television Foundation
,
Education Services Australia
,
2015
8891508
2015
website
children's fiction
'On this website you will find rich educational material to support primary and lower-secondary teachers using the My Place TV series in the classroom. Explore background information, aligned with the My Place stories, on events and people significant to Australia's history. Download clips and stills from the TV series, as well as teaching activities and student activity sheets that relate to current themes. Go behind the scenes with production information and interviews, or chat with other teachers and share stories in the teacher's forum.' (Source: My Place website)
'This chapter draws on ecocriticism and critical plant studies to argue that Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins’ My Place ([1987] 2008) can—and should—be read as a plant-centred narrative. Australia’s unique landscape, with its towering ghost gums, sun-baked bushland and vast red sand, plays an intrinsic part in Australian picturebook storytelling. In My Place, this landscape is transformed—both figuratively and literally—as a bustling Sydney suburb in 1988 slowly transforms into an Aboriginal creek camp in 1788. Ultimately, only one natural element endures the centuries of change and industrial progress: a centuries-old fig tree. While it is the social and political nature of My Place that is most often critically examined, this chapter focuses on the environmental elements of the book, while examining the ethical issues of non-Indigenous authors telling First Nations stories. It argues that the fig tree acts as both a keeper of memories and a “survivor tree.” Not only does it create a shared bond between the book’s narrators across time, but it also ties all of their stories—and thus all of the history and memories held within them—together.' (Publication abstract)
'The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) administers the oldest national prize for children’s literature in Australia. Each year, the CBCA confers “Book of the Year” awards to literature for young people in five categories: Older Readers, Younger Readers, Early Childhood, Picture Books and Information Books. In recent years the Picture Book category has emerged as a highly visible space within which the CBCA can contest discourses of cultural marginalization which construct Australian (‘colonial’) literature as inferior or adjunct to the major Anglophone literary traditions, and children’s literature as lesser than its adult counterpart. The CBCA has moved from asserting its authority by withholding judgment in the award’s early years towards asserting expertise via overtly politicized selections in the twenty-first century. Reading across the CBCA’s selections of picture books allows for insights into wider trends in Australian children’s literature and culture, and suggests a conscious engagement with social as well as literary values on the part of the CBCA in the twenty-first century.'
My Place for Teachers
Australian Children's Television Foundation
,
Education Services Australia
,
2015
8891508
2015
website
children's fiction
'On this website you will find rich educational material to support primary and lower-secondary teachers using the My Place TV series in the classroom. Explore background information, aligned with the My Place stories, on events and people significant to Australia's history. Download clips and stills from the TV series, as well as teaching activities and student activity sheets that relate to current themes. Go behind the scenes with production information and interviews, or chat with other teachers and share stories in the teacher's forum.' (Source: My Place website)
Developing a Hungry Eye : Evaluating the Visual Narrative in Australian Children's Picture Books
Bruce
:
2004
Z1133200
2004
single work
thesis
During the period studied in this thesis, 1970-1999, picture books in Australia have become increasingly sophisticated and complex. In order to decode them readers need higher levels of visual literacy. In researching this the author has created a framework for evaluating visual narrative structure in picture books. This was then developed and tested on a total of 145 Australian picture books, with special focus given to the works of Ron Brooks, Dick Roughsey and Percy Trezise, Mem Fox, Donna Rawlins, Gary Crew and Bob Graham.
