From Little Things Big Things Grow presents the lyrics of the Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly song of the same title, alongside the history of the Gurindji people's plight for their traditional land in the Northern Territory.
The song recounts the story of when Vincent Lingiari and other Gurindji workers walked off the Wave Hill cattle station in 1966. What began as a strike over wages and conditions became an eight-year long struggle for the return of traditional lands. It ended in August 1975 when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically poured sand into old Lingiari's hand. The book is illustrated Queensland artist Peter Hudson and the kids from Gurindji country.
From Little Things Big Things Grow is a not-for-profit project established to raise funds to provide art, heritage, and cultural facilities for Gurindji people, with the assistance of Ian Thorpe's Fountain for Youth.
The budding young artists who illustrated From Little Things Big Things Grow attend the local Kalkaringi Community Education Centre (CEC). Kalkaringi is a remote community approximately 500km southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory. The school services both Kalkaringi and the nearby community of Dargaragu. (Adapted from Publisher's Website)
From Little Things Big Things Grow : The Story of an East Timorese Primary School
Camberwell East
:
One Day Hill
,
2012
21100342
2012
single work
picture book
children's
'Inspired by the well-known Australian song 'From Little Things Big Things Grow' by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, the class 5 and 6 children of the Edmund Rice Primary School in Deleco, East Timor, have retold the story of their school growing from small beginnings, with problems along the way, to big things in a small mountain village. Despite the history of invasion, poverty and struggle still felt by most of the Timorese population, the children at Deleco Primary show a great love and devotion to their country and have much hope for the future.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Published by Narragunnawali.
'This essay explores how some recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authored titles have used local languages and personal histories - including complex stories which deal with the Stolen Generations - to engage and educate young Australian readers, while providing much needed inspiration to nurture Indigenous audiences.' (Source: Heiss, Anita, Aboriginal Literature for Children: More Than Just Pretty Pictures, 2015)
Anita Heiss reviews From Little Things Big Things Grow written and performed by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly.
'This essay explores how some recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authored titles have used local languages and personal histories - including complex stories which deal with the Stolen Generations - to engage and educate young Australian readers, while providing much needed inspiration to nurture Indigenous audiences.' (Source: Heiss, Anita, Aboriginal Literature for Children: More Than Just Pretty Pictures, 2015)
