Happy times, sad times, boom times and gloom times! From the First Peoples’ camp at the river crossing in the 1820s through to Carols by Candlelight at the showground in today’s world, this is a decade by decade illustrated story of a small country community. The 2024 CBCA Eve Pownall Award winner, this beautifully illustrated text details the history of an imagined Australian country town based on extensive research into the histories of many towns. It pays tribute to the First Nations people who were the original inhabitants of this country.
In each decade interesting topics are canvassed such as what the early European explorers carried with them, how and why horses were introduced, what activities these settlers engaged in, the violence that often attended their ‘settlement,’ and later the Gold Rush and associated topics such as Chinese miners and bushrangers. Natural disasters such as floods or bushfires, new forms of transport and new agricultural methods, women’s rights, Federation, wars, the Great Depression, and The Stolen Generations are further significant topics covered. Domestic subjects such as refrigeration, washing and sanitation are also surveyed, along with introduced pests, leisure pursuits, the introduction of radio, the Queen’s visit in 1954, mice plagues and the rise of popular culture. Quotes from historical secondary sources, and on p 39, three primary source reminiscences by people looking back on their lives, are included.
The minute detail in Louise Hogan’s delicately drawn watercolour images will have children poring over them for hours, searching for visual facts. Each spread provides an informative and insightful aerial view of the town as it grows from a handful of log cabins to a thriving town. Her endpapers are glorious pen and ink drawings of Australian wildlife in a country scene. The summary pages offer reflections on social issues that have beset and confront Australia to the present day. The town depicted is a microcosm of this and provides a refined visual focus that combines all these topics in one imagined history. The book also contains a constructed timeline. (And it might be fruitfully compared to My Place (1987) by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins.)
Historian and novelist Isolde Martyn researched nearly every town in Australia for the bicentenary volume ‘ Events and Places’ and is also the author of eight award-winning historical novels. Robyn Ridgeway’s ancestry is from the NSW North coast. Her mother was a Thungutti woman, her father a Worimi man. Robyn teaches Aboriginal Studies at both a Diploma and HSC level for TAFE and is involved with several Aboriginal Committees with TAFE as well as the local Community.
Louise Hogan is best known for ‘When a Goose Meets a Moose’ and ‘Apples for Hurricane Street,’ which was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. Although she graduated from the National Art School with a Diploma in Interior Design, illustrating children’s books was her real ambition. She also worked at Taronga Zoo art department to practise drawing animals.
Together they have created a work that will stimulate, inform and entertain in any Australian primary history classroom.