Yanga Mother by Cheryl Leavy artwork by Christopher Bassi

 

It is so important to share the issues surrounding The Stolen Generation with our students. This book explores this topic using the relationship between a mother kangaroo and her joey. The way this is presented I imagine the author had very young children in mind who might simply see this as a dual language story filled with kangaroos while with older students' it is essential to share the end notes. Here are some quotes:

"Yanga Mother honours the strength and dignity of the women of Western Queensland, mardi matriarchs, and all First Nations mothers. Well into the 1970s thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by Australian governments. With as many as one in three of our children stolen."

This story is based on a story told by the author's grandmother - Beryl Wharton. Her mother told Beryl to look up at the clouds to know her mother was watching over her.

"Yanga Mother honours dhugandu, the grey kangaroo, as family, because like mardi peoples, they also like to stay connected in social groups called mobs."

"We can all learn something from dhugandu about family, responsibility and safety. They teach us that our connections to each other are sacred."

"The reference to the sun, sky and clouds calls us to remember Country and our sacred obligation to love and protect it, just as it has nurtured us into our very existence. Respecting Country includes respecting its people."

With young children, you might need to talk about the final pages where the mother kangaroo is depicted as a spirit or a cloud - has she died, or have they been separated?

I was sent this book by UQP (University of Queensland Press) and it came wrapped in the same paper as the end papers - it is always exciting to unwrap a parcel. I am curious about the bright white flowers with golden yellow centres on the end papers - are they desert flowers found in Queensland?  They do not appear in the book but on the final page there is a flower bud which I think must be from this same plant.  I asked the publisher about the flowers and she said: it is a native flower and represents Country. The yellow is significant as it recalls Chris Bassi’s artistic practice.

This book will be published 2nd July, 2024. I do like the way the text is expressed in very short phrases. The English and Kooma texts are presented on every page with Kooma in bold print. When you share this book with students spend some time looking at the way the title is present with Yanga in slightly larger font. Yanga means mother. Also take some time to talk about the range of emotions you can see in the eyes of the young kangaroo. Some of the illustrations are repeated with just a change to the background colour to show the passing of time. 

You can see more pages here. Here is a wonderful audio glossary so you can hear the words from this text spoken too. The teachers notes are coming soon. 

Bookseller blurb: Yanga Mother is a timely and poetic celebration of First Nations languages. This powerful bilingual story honours connection to Country and the unbreakable bonds of never-ending motherly love. Wandaguli Yanga. There is always Mother. From award-winning writer Cheryl Leavy comes this beautiful picture book in Kooma and English about a grey kangaroo and her joey, and the unbreakable bonds of family. With artwork from renowned Meriam and Yupungathi artist Christopher Bassi, this gentle yet powerful story honours the Stolen Generations, First Nations matriarchs, and never-ending motherly love.

Cheryl Leavy is from the Kooma and Nguri Nations in western and central Queensland. She is an award-winning poet and writer who loves to tell stories that celebrate First Nations culture, history and Country. Yanga Mother is her first picture book and her second, For You Country, will be published in 2025. Read more about the artist Christopher Bassi here. Christopher Bassi is an artist of Meriam, Yupungathi and British descent. Working with archetypal models of representational painting, his work engages with the medium as sociological and historical text and as a means to address issues surrounding cultural identity, alternative genealogies, and colonial legacies in Australia and the South Pacific. I am going to assume this is his first picture book. 

This large format book could be a good addition to your library when you share these companion texts:

Three Dresses by Wanda Gibson

I was so proud of my three dresses. I took care of them so I'd always have 

one to wash, one to wear and one spare. 

This is a book that should be shared with children all over Australia (and beyond). For many children this story will be so thought provoking. Imagine if your Christmas present was a new dress - I am sure most little girls would be excited. And what if you were given three dresses - now that is sure to make you extra happy. But what if the three dresses were not new? These are second-hand dresses given to you by the Lutheran church. Have your emotions just been through a roller coaster? Now think about how you feel if these are your only dresses - your best dresses - your special dresses. 

"You should have seen the joy on our faces when we put on those second-hand dresses. We were so happy."

Wanda and her family live at Hope Vale Mission. This is her story. She was born in 1946. 

"When I was a kid, I went to school and had to work on the farm. After school, I did domestic duties for the Mission staff."

Now let's continue the story. The next thing to think about as you read this book is holidays. How long do your family have for a holiday? Where do you go and how do you get there? What do you do on your holiday?  Wanda and her family have just two weeks each year. Wanda packs her three dresses, one to wear, one to wash and one spare. 

"We didn't have bags, so we'd lay our dresses on the ground and roll them up like a little swag to carry on our backs. Mum and Dad would take tools, blankets, and mayie to eat. We all had to carry so much."

Compare this with your class discussion. The family will walk to their holiday destination, they have no suitcases and on the next page we read the journey takes two days. 

So now think about where they might be going? What will they do there? Where will they stay and what will they eat?

The group arrive at the beach. They set up a camp and catch fish, gather bush tucker and tell stories. Of course, eventually the holiday ends but the little girls in the family still have their precious dresses. And for Wanda, recalling her childhood, this is a very special memory. 

Blurb UQP: When Wanda Gibson was a little girl, her mum would tell her this as they packed to go on holidays. Wanda grew up on Hope Vale Mission in Far North Queensland, and her family were allowed only one short break away from work each year. At their special spot at the beach, they camped in the sandhills, cooked fresh fish on the fire and swam in the ocean. Beautifully illustrated with Wanda’s paintings, this heart-warming true story celebrates family time, connection to place and finding joy in the simple things, like your favourite three dresses.

Thank you to UQP for sending the advance copy of Three Dresses which will be published on 30th April, 2024. Make sure you add this to your library collection - Primary and High School. Here are the teachers notes. And take a look at this excellent review from The Bottom Shelf. 

Wanda Gibson is a Nukgal Wurra woman of the Guugu Yimithirr people (on her mum’s side) and lives in Hope Vale on the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Her dad is a Yuuethawarra man and his country is around Cape Melville. Both of Wanda’s parents were Stolen Generation and were brought to Cape Bedford Mission when they were ten or twelve. Wanda is a master weaver – she weaves baskets, birds and fish from dried grass. She is also a painter and completed a Diploma of Visual Arts at Cairns TAFE in 2014. Wanda has five kids, eleven grandkids and five great-grandkids.

Companion books:

Sister Heart by Sally Morgan

Just by chance here is another verse novel.  I read this last week before reading The Crazy Man.  Sister Heart and The Crazy man do not have a lot in common on one level - one is set in Canada in 1965 and the other in Australia between 1905 and 1970.  On an emotional level, though, both are such important stories.

Sally Morgan herself says complex topics such as the Stolen Generation can be more deeply explained through a personal narrative. In this book we meet a little girl who has been named Annie.  We never discover her true name or learn where she is from. As the book opens Annie has been taken away from her mother and family. She travels over many days by ship and is placed in institutional care.  It is here that Annie makes an important friend.  A girl of the same age called Janey who befriends Annie and helps her to cope with her loss, bewilderment and the brutality of the care in this place which is now her home.

One of the best parts of this book is when Annie and Janey are able to wander away from the care home to a nearby creek.

The bush nearby smells damp
fresh
alive.
Birds swoop
call out
make nests
sing.

Annie's brother Tim gives her a laughing stone.

If ya feel sad
squeeze the stone
and laugh
Only don't laugh in school!

Here is a set of very detailed teaching notes.  This book should be considered as essential reading for a senior primary grade.  It could be used along side the book and movie of The Rabbit Proof Fence and The Burnt Stick.

You can read an interview with Sally Morgan here.  You should also listen to this Radio National interview.  It goes for about 14 minutes but is worth spending the time to listen right to the end.

I will make another of my bold predictions and say this book will surely be short listed for the CBCA prize in 2016.  Once it is available in paperback I plan to add a class set of this book to our library.

Here is a selection of other books on this topic which you might explore

With the lightest of touches, Sally Morgan deftly weaves the reader into the lives of these young people, 

capturing the grief and the small joys to be found in shared hardship.

Sorry Day May 26th The Burnt Stick by Anthony Hill illustrated by Mark Sofilas.

"They went to the campfire where the cinders were cold. Liyan took a stick that had burnt black almost to charcoal.  She ground the soot and the charred ends of the stick into a powder in the palm of her hand, and began to rub it into John Jagamarra's skin."

The Burnt Stick is an important and confronting story which should be shared with our older Primary students especially as we mark the occasion of Sorry Day.  You can learn a little more about this important day here.  The Burnt stick was published in 1994 long before our national discussions about the Stolen Generation but it is one of the best books to use with students as a way to explain this complex and tragic aspect of our history.

Liyan's plan as outlined in the quote above works twice.  The Big Man from the Welfare arrives to take John away because his skin is light-brown which is a sign of his mixed parentage. The first time he simply gets back into his truck and drives away.  The second time he pats John on the head and finds his hand covered with dust. (see the illustration by Mark Sofilas below)  Liyan laughs this off  'It's ashes from the fire, boss. He was playing in them this morning.  You know what black fellers are like.  We always bin sitting in the dust."  Sadly the trick is revealed and so on their third visit in the early morning John is taken away.

The scenes of John's capture come as a flashback.  The Burnt Stick opens with a description of life at the Pearl Bay Mission for Aboriginal Children.  I think this section would make a good starting point for a discussion with students :

"For the Fathers did not teach the children the songs, the dancing and the picture-making of their own people.  They did not ... tell them stories of the Dreaming and the Ancestor spirits of the land that had once been told around the campfires. They did not show them how to follow the kangaroo through the bush, or how to make spears, or how to find where the wild yams grew (and) ... as the years went by, most people forgot them."

You might like to explore this detailed unit of work for The Burnt Stick.  We also have an audio version in our school library and I found an excellent interview with the author Anthony Hill which will greatly add to your understanding and appreciation of this book.  Here is another detailed review with some useful links.

The Horn Book in 1995 said :

 "An exceptional and very emotional novel that will stay with readers long after they have finished it."

Post edit (9th June, 2022): If you want to share other examples of the stolen children from a Canadian perspective try to find this splendid book.  Read more here. And here is a detailed review.