‘All you fellas watching, come up, join in, warrima.’ This work exuberantly celebrates the fusion of Australian cultures, combining Aboriginal dance with Italian food in a contemporary story about cultural understanding.
A ‘Murri fella’ travelled to Italy (‘the source’) to learn how to make pizza (‘sauce’) and brought the knowledge back to Far North Queensland. Three hungry boys visit his Pizzeria where he feeds them crocodile meat pizza, tells them traditional stories, and invites them to join the dance – to ‘warrima’ or ‘shake a leg’.
Cross-cultural exchange is evinced in this stunning collaboration between Boori Monty Pryor, respected storyteller, dancer and writer, and Jan Ormerod, acclaimed Australian-born picture book author/illustrator, long resident in the UK. Presented in inventive graphic novel format with witty word play, the end-papers depict the snake totem looping from Britain to Australia as a symbol of their creative partnership. Winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award Children’s Fiction 2011, this is an enormously original work of sophisticated artistry.
Boori Monty Pryor was born in North Queensland. His father is from the Birrigubba of the Bowen region and his mother from Yarrabah (near Cairns), a descendant of the Kungganji.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
