1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
2. Art techniques
3. Bravery
4. Cave paintings
5. Colonisation
6. Convicts
7. Courage
8. First Nations people
9. History
10. Human rights
11. Imprisonment
12. Massacres
13. Pioneers
14. Visual literacy
15. WW1
16. WW2

‘Let the truth be told so healing can begin.’ These non-Indigenous storytellers, Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac, have an impressive pedigree of telling stories which are fully representative of First Nations People. The acknowledgment of Country on the title page, as well as an extensive list of consulting organisations, and permissions given to the creators, affirm this.

Each double spread is a lush gouache painting in the naïve style which has established Lessac’s long career as an internationally recognised illustrator. Greenwood’s text is presented in three different typefaces and font sizes. These include a one sentence caption (always containing the phrase ‘our country’); a description of what is going on in the painting, and where; and, in the smallest print of all, a paragraph of facts and figures behind the historical event memorialised. This enables readers of all ages to access the story at their level, and for those sharing the book to choose how to share both words and illustrations.

The double spread captioned ‘In our country, we will remember them’ has people pictured clustering around a stone monument, holding each other for support, many with sad expressions. The monument sits atop a hill, on a cleared piece of ground lined with story stones; overlooking a treed landscape, against a sky that could be dawn or dusk. The description includes a call to action for the reader: ‘Learn about what happened when a frontier war was waged.’ Finally, the paragraph gives the details of the massacre of Wirrayaraay people at Myall Creek in 1838. Greenwood and Lessac have played with familiar phrasing and often repeated remembrance of conflicts to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about the ‘long silence’ around violence closer to home. Lessac’s paintings can appear child-like. However in her compositions there are subtle depths which reward repeated viewings. The front endpapers present the key historical events and their dates as a combination timeline / table of contents and the back endpapers give brief cameos of other historical events and their locations not detailed in the book.

‘Our Country: Where History Happened’ is a Children’s Book Council of Australia 2024 Honour Book in the Eve Pownall award. It was also shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Award and the NSW Premier’s History Award.

Series title: Our Country

1. Walker Books publisher website with profiles of Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac and review sources https://www.walkerbooks.com.au/book/9781760653576/
2. Mark Greenwood author website https://markgreenwood.com.au/
3. Frané Lessac illustrator website https://franelessac.com/
4. Walker Books Teacher Notes by Dr Robyn Sheahan-Bright AM https://www.walkerbooks.com.au/wp-content/uploads/resource/OUR-COUNTRY-Where-History-Happened-Teacher-Notes.pdf
5. ReadPlus 7 Dec 2023 review by Barbara Braxton of ‘Our Country: Where History Happened’ https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/our-country-where-history-happened
6. The Book Muse 1 Sept 2023 review by Ashleigh Meikle of ‘Our Country: Where History Happened’ https://ashleighmeikle.com.au/2023/09/01/our-country-where-history-happened-by-mark-greenwood-frane-lessac/
7. The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Comments by the CBCA judges on ‘Our Country: Where History Happened’ https://cbca.org.au/book/our-country-where-history-happened/
8. American Indians in Children’s Literature. Critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult books. Response to ‘We Are Grateful’ Frané Lessac’s book with Traci Sorell being banned in some school districts in the United States https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-bans-and-native-voices.html