1. Animals
2. Babies
3. Board books
4. Country
5. Culture
6. Darwin (NT Top End SD52-04)
7. Family
8. Fishing
9. Food
10. Glossaries and vocabularies
11. Hunting and gathering
12. Parent and child
13. Readers
14. Teaching

Prepare readers and viewers for an experience that is highly engaging, fun and educational. The essential opening page features a language and phonetics table for animals, plants and relationships which appear in the images and words throughout the book. Eager readers, who may be unfamiliar with the Larrakia language, are challenged to check images and Larrakia words on each page against the phonetics table.

The story opens with Grandmother (Mother’s Mother) and Grandfather (Mother’s Father) greeting us as they sit by the fire cooking. Meanwhile Father and Uncle are out hunting for magpie goose, dugong and green sea turtle. Meanwhile, Aunty and Cousin are in the mangroves collecting hermit crabs, long bum, mud mussel, crab and periwinkle. Meanwhile, Mother, Sister (big), Sister (little) are digging for all sorts of long yam, green sea turtle, turtle eggs and long necked fresh water turtle. Meanwhile, Brother (big) and Brother (little) are out spearing barramundi, black bream, stingray and shark. Meanwhile, the children are swimming and playing while Great Uncle and Father’s Mother are looking after the children. The final page features a mirror with the words, ‘And this is Ngana’ (me), surrounded by various creatures in the bush. Essentially, here is a happy family revealing their lifestyle, food, recreation and close relationships.

The back cover explains that ‘Minbeni’ is a Larrakia word which means a Larrakia woman who has given birth. This commentary goes on to say that ‘as mothers we have the responsibility of caring for our young and old. We look after our country as women and as rangers. We tell stories through pictures to keep our Larrakia language strong and our culture alive’.

1. Dalba Larrakia Baby reproduction of the book https://www.territorystories.nt.gov.au/jspui/bitstream/10070/754713/1/Dalba_Larrakia_baby_Larrakia.pdf
2. Northern Territory Government. Larrakia Rangers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-g-MI6o4-A
3. Larrakia Nation. Public Art http://larrakia.com/art-centre/public-art/
4. Larrakia Nation, protocols, welcome to country http://larrakia.com/about/protocol/
5. The Larrakia People http://larrakia.com/about/the-larrakia-people/