ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation)

Allen and Unwin, RRP: $29.95

This is a beautifully produced collection of stories about grandmothers. The stories are filled with wonder and love and the mystery of being - and having - a grandmother. As a reader they made me jealous. I never knew my grandmothers. Nanna Williams I met, but she died when I was only 9. I never met my father’s mother in Austria, and I always felt ripped off when I was at school and kids would talk about the wonderful things they did with their grandmothers.

So I relished reading the stories here, especially those by Aboriginal women, one as a grandmother, one as a granddaughter. Both I admire and respect as women and as writers.

Ruby Langford Ginibi is affectionately known as ‘Gumi’, which is Bundjalung for grandmother, and she writes about her grand jahjam Ronald James Nicholas, whom she calls Ronny Boy. Suffering from a lack of love and attention from his father – a legacy of his own father’s childhood – Ronny Boy naturally was affected in a way that impacted on his journey as a teenager, seeing him in and out of boy’s homes and eventually in Long Bay Jail (where he remains).

Ruby’s unconditional love for her grandson comes through the absolute honesty with which she writes about the hardships, family dramas and sad realities of her family life. She writes: ‘I’m distressed almost every single day of my life about my grandson.’

The other contributor I want to mention is Lorraine McGee-Sippel who was of course The Yabun Elder of the Year in 2008. Lorraine’s piece title Extra Lucky describes the joy of having not two but four grandmothers. Lorraine’s Nanna Mason was her mother’s mother, born in Wollongong and the first grandmother she knew. One of her favourite people, Nanna Mason was a ‘Sally’ or as we say ‘Salvo’, she loved to crochet and her house smelled like musty mothballs. I loved that line in the story; it reminded me of lots of grandmother’s houses I’ve been in.

The woman know as Lorraine’s ‘Grandma’ was the second wife of her Dad’s father who lived in Kurri Kurri. Lorraine thinks she may have met her once, but can’t be sure.

Lorraine’s 3rd Grandmother was Dinah Myrtle McGee, a Yorta Yorta woman, and she only learned of her when she spoke to her maternal mother Hazel for the first time on the phone in 1981. Lorraine describes the first meeting with Dinah out at La Perouse and it’s a magical scene.

Finally, Lorraine never thought she would meet her paternal grandparents, but in 2002 she found them, unfortunately in unmarked graves in Botany Cemetery. But Lorraine chose to write to her grandmother Emily and say all the things she would have said to her in person. This is a magical piece of writing also.

I don’t want to give away too much in each story, because both worth reading in full so do get a copy for you or your mother or grandmother or granddaughter!

Other names you might recognise in this anthology are Anne Deveson, Angela Catterns and Gabrielle Lord.

It’s important to mention the editor of this collection, it’s Janet Huntchinson who also worked on books by Tara June Winch, Stephen Hagan and Lorraine McGee-Sippel, who’s memoirs Hey Mum, What’s a Half-Caste will be launched at Gleebooks in May. Janet seems to wave a magic wand and make good books great!

Grandma Magic is the perfect gift for Mother’s Day!

Substitute chocolate with eggs this Easter, and gift your kids something truly special.

Check out Joshua and the Two Crabs by Joshua Button (Magabala Books).

Born in Broome in 1988, Joshua Button is a young man with a keen interest in the saltwater country he has grown up in. In his first book, Joshua and the Two Crabs, his observations of his family’s fishing trip to Crab Creek give us a unique opportunity to see this adventure through his eyes. His illustrations are insightful and evocative, and kids will love them.

And while you’re at it, get hold of Loongie the Greedy Crocodile written by Lucy and Kiefer Dann and illustrated by Browyn Houston (also Magabala). Loongie is a greedy saltwater crocodile who lives among the mangroves at Walaman Creek in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia. He has no friends and no-one will come near the creek while he’s around. Loongie soon learns why being greedy has its consequences.

Have you ever wondered what Australians find funny? If there is a distinctive style of Australian humour, or is there more than one? What are the ingredients of such Australian funny stuff, and what social and cultural functions do they perform?

And what about Aboriginal humour? Is there such a thing, and if so, what makes us laugh? If you think like me then you’ll believe that our collective sense of humour is what has helped to sustain communities over two centuries of hard times.

To learn more though, and to have a giggle at the same time, you should grab a copy of the recently released Serious Frolic: essays on Australian Humour edited by Fran De Groen and Peter Kirkpatrick.

Amongst this first collection of essays dedicated to examining a range of Australian humour, our very own educator Lillian Holt – who regards her best asset to be her humour – contributes an essay that suggests that Aboriginal humour is ‘gentle’ and that self-deprecation eases oppression. I agree at least on the latter.

Lillian’s piece is the result of conversations she’s had with blackfellas around Australia on the topic of humour, conversations which determined that our humour is ‘spontaneous, part of ordinary life, happening here and now.’

Lillian gives examples of her own funny moments working in Aboriginal education, and some of these are a hoot. She also shows how humour can cut the tension between truth and stereotype by reversing such stereotypes.

Humour is included in Lillian’s list of Five H’s needed to for Australia to progress through the thorny terrain of race relations in this country – the other H’s being History, Honesty Humanity and Hope.

Other contributors in Serious Frolic include Jessica Milner Davis who comments on the humour of Ruby Langford Ginibi in her essay ‘Aussie Humour and Laughter: joking as an acculturating ritual’ and Bruce Bennett who states that ‘Herb Wharton shows a capacity to create humour from adversity while building on oral traditions of storytelling rich in dialogue.’

So, if you want a laugh, or you’re interested in finding out what makes other people laugh, grab a hold of Serious Frolic: essays on Australian Humour:

Kargaru Productions - $23.95
ISBN: 9780646484228

Many of you reading this will have heard of the Wilcannia Mob – five young lads from the town in far west NSW, about 11 hours drive from Sydney and 200kms from Broken Hill. Out of nowhere in 2002, they became overnight sensations with their song Down River (recorded on a compilation All You Mob ) when it became a #1 hit on the Triple J airwaves after a series of hip-hop workshops in Wilcannia.

So, who are the deadly lads?
There’s Walter James Ebsworth, know as Wally. Buddy Stewart Blair, Lendal Isaac King, Colin Roy Johnson, known as Colroy and Keith John Dutton known as Keithy. They call themselves the Barkandji Boys, you see, Wilcannia is the land of the Barkandji people. Barka means river, and the Barkandji people are river people and the boys sing about the river and what they do there.

So impressive was their accidental debut hit that Midnight Oil asked to use Down River as a warm up track for their gigs for the rest of the year. They boys were also invited to perform at Homebake on the main stage in Sydney that year, making them the youngest ever to perform at what is Australia’s largest ‘Australian-only’ music festival.

Further success for the song and the lads included:
* The album All You Mob was listed in the top 10 alternative albums of the year in 2002 in the New York Times.
* Down River was included in the Triple J Hottest 100 in 2002.
* Down River was nominated for the Best New Single in the 2002 Deadlies, AND WON!

Now there is a book to tell the story of the journey. Down River: The Wilcannia Mob Story is a 48 page, full colour illustrated version of their group’s story, but it includes the important role of their families and their community. It traces their origins from a makeshift recording studio in a town long forgotten, to becoming over night celebrities with international acclaim. It is a story of hope, which shows us that when hearts are open and people work together, anything is possible.

I want to point out that projects like this in the book format, are always more than just a story. This book also tells the story of the history and language of the area.

According to Murray Butcher in the book, who teaches Barkandji at the Central School in Wilcannia, “The Barkandji language group spreads from down on the Murray-Darling Junction right up to about Bourke, half-way across to Cobar and Ivanhoe, down, right down across into South Australia, Broken Hill and over to White Cliffs.”

Down River: The Wilcannia Mob Story the book is a useful resource to share with your / our kids to inspire them and get them to do something together in their own communities – write raps, write poetry, take photos, make stories, keep a journal, act like roving reporters themselves and tell the news of their local area.

Down River: The Wilcannia Mob Story is made up of photos, bios and song lyrics and a timeline of how the journey has played out so far – somehow I think there’ll be another book in the future…

I’d like to encourage you all to go down to your local libraries today and ask them to order it in. When school goes back, tell the teachers to check out the website and order the book as well and to use the site in the classroom.

You can order the book on-line and also listen to and sing along to Down River with everything happening on the site: http://www.downriver.com.au/

I was absolutely thrilled to be asked to make a presentation to a group of new young authors in Sydney in early December. The event signalled the completion of the wordUP literacy program which was run during September and October 2008, and included participants from the Yurangai Learning Centre’s Out of School Program, which is operated by Barnardos at the Factory Community Centre in Waterloo.

The project involved writing books – and the books, you may be surprised to learn, were written by some of Australia’s youngest authors. I was excited to release my first book when I was 28, but the youngest author in this group was only five years old! Now that is inspiring and impressive, by anyone’s standards.

The range of ideas and stories in the wordUP project reflects the diversity of our lives in this city, and also the creative minds of the kids in the local area. And creativity and diversity are important to recognise and also celebrate.

The fact that these books were written in four weeks is astounding and I think that I could benefit from some workshops also given my books take between four months and four years to write.

The books were completed with the support and encouragement of the Social Work Students from the University of New South Wales who were given the broad task of creating a project related to the Close The Gap campaign. They designed the WordUp project and found a suitable partner in the Yuringai Learning Centre – and I congratulate them all for your efforts and for ensuring that we will have a generation of creative producers coming out of Waterloo and Redfern.

As the Chair of the Australian Society of Authors, and someone who loves to write and to read books, it was my pleasure to officially present the books to their authors.

Our youngest author is Ben Snaea at only 5 years old – and his book called Jet Li in the Jungle is about Jet Li and his brother Jack and cousin John fighting lions in the jungle.

Liam Thompson is only 6 years old and his book Ben Ten and his First Journey involves kangaroos and birds and also has photos of Liam in action! They’re great.

Isabella Redman is 8 years old, and her book King Kong was swinging through the Jungle uses bold coloured pages, and text and Isabella’s own handwriting to tell the story.

Belinda McDonnell is 8 years old and her book The Wicked Witch is about a witch with an evil dog called Sniffles and they live in a big castle made out of ice.

Serika Shillingsworth is 9 years old, and her book The Evil Queen Who Stole The Sky is a story about an evil queen who raises taxes so she can buy more dresses.

Kaleab Gavin is 9 years old and his book The Mystery Noise is about boys exploring the jungle.

Samantha Redman is 10 years old, and her book Sam’s Best Pictures is about fish, the moon and a serious Lego fight!

Jerome is 10 year old and he wrote a book called Columbia Tristar Pictures about a Kungfu Panda and dragon warriors.

Last but not least, Liam McDonnell is 11 years old and his book The Shotgun, is a suspense story about an FBI agent on a mission that includes saving hostages.

Congratulations to all these wonderful kids and the team that helped to bring their stories to life.