1. Ancestors
2. Colonisation
3. Courage
4. Cultural protocols
5. Danger
6. Death
7. Dingoes
8. Dreaming
9. Environment
10. Family
11. Family relationships
12. Friendship
13. Kindness
14. Relationships
15. Respect
16. Stolen generations

This is a story of how the First Peoples, land, animals, sky, and water were all one family and how they looked after and understood each other. Their world then was in balance.

During the Dreaming, First Nations peoples, past present and future coexisted. Special landscapes and land shapes existed where people, animals, land, sky, and water cared for each other. In this story, ‘Sunny & Shadow,’ dingoes lived on one side of the hill and people lived on the other side. They formed a special connection. In ‘Sunny & Shadow’ young Calla has a special affinity with the dingo and it is her life’s mission to take care of them, particularly one special pup, Chichi. Calla has a precious gift – she can talk to the dingoes. It is her special job to learn their ways and to look after them.

When newcomers took over the land, they removed Calla and her people from the land, leaving the dingoes to fend for themselves. Chichi, the dingo, runs for his life, escaping through a special cave that gives him the power of invisibility. When he emerges from the cave, Chichi finds himself in a different time and place. Chichi is befriended by Sunny who also has Calla’s gift of relating to dingoes because she is Calla’s granddaughter. They work together to get the dingoes safely back to country. ‘Sunny & Shadow’ is an 88-page fascinating story of some complexity. It weaves both worlds together to restore a better balance between the environment and people because ‘when life is abundant and in balance, future generations can thrive.’  

Helen Milroy is a descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She is a professor at the University of Western Australia, consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission and the AFL’s first Indigenous Commissioner.

1. Fremantle Press Teaching Notes https://fremantlepress.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/TN_SunnyAndShadow.pdf
2. Books+Publishing 14 Jan 2025 review by Clare Millar of ‘Sunny & Shadow’ https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2025/01/14/263232/sunny-and-shadow-helen-milroy-fremantle/
3. ReadPlus review 21 Feb 2025 by Carolyn Hull of ‘Sunny & Shadow’. https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/sunny-and-shadow
4. The Bottom Shelf 22 Apr 2025 review by Barbara Braxton of ‘Sunny & Shadow’ and other books https://thebottomshelf.edublogs.org/category/first-nations-stories/
5. Your Kids’ Next Read 12 Feb 2025 offers an approximately 10 min interview with Helen Milroy starting at 22.30 minutes into this podcast. https://www.yourkidsnextread.com.au/podcast-episode/episode-189-10-minutes-with-helen-milroy/
6. Common Ground Team 27 May 2019 ‘The Dreaming’ https://www.commonground.org.au/article/the-dreaming
7. National Museum of Australia ‘Defining moments: the arrival of the dingo.’ https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/arrival-of-the-dingo#:~:text=Dingoes%20continue%20to%20be%20considered,night%2C%20keeping%20away%20malevolent%20spirits
8. Wikipedia profile of Helen Milroy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Milroy