1. Art techniques
2. Gallipoli
3. Historical fiction
4. History
5. Literary techniques
6. Remembrance
7. Visual literacy
8. War
9. WW1

‘One Minute’s Silence’ is a reflection upon one of Australia’s iconic historical moments – the catastrophic landing at Gallipoli in 1915. Its text is a masterfully composed prose poem that works upon our imaginations and feelings. Michael Camilleri’s full-page illustrations are styled in the tradition of the black and white comic, completed in dense ink and pencil lines that give a sense of action and turmoil, with the slightly unfocussed sight we might have of these long-past events. It was rightly awarded the Prime Ministers Prize for children’s fiction in 2015 – a prize that added to a long list of awards for David Metzenthen, and was a coup for Michael Camilleri, then a first-time book illustrator.

The meditation on Gallipoli begins in a 2013 Year 12 classroom at Melbourne’s well-known secondary Steiner school, Sophia Mundi. Each student is drawn sitting at their desk in mid-silence at 11.00 am on Remembrance Day, then invited, along with the reader, to imagine themselves onto the beach at Gallipoli, into the trenches with the Turkish soldiers, onto the steep slopes where Australians were slaughtered, and further inland to a Turkish mother and a wife worried over the fate of their men. In the illustrations members of the Year 12 class move with the soldiers, join with the fighting, or stand by as men are machine-gunned or booby traps set up for the Turkish soldiers coming in as the Australians retreated. The effect is shocking, but also deeply respectful of the bravery on both sides of this battle. The invitation to imagine such brutal slaughter is not easy to stay with, and by the end this discomfort a growing new awareness is there on the faces of the Year 12 students in the classroom emerging from their silence. The final words are given to a 1934 speech by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who was a commanding officer at Gallipoli and later founding president of the Republic of Turkey. He makes the point that every soldier’s life has been grieved somewhere by a mother. The Australians ‘have become our sons as well,’ he says. Not exactly, or not only, an anti-war book, One Minute’s Silence accepts and even respects what happened historically while it tries to bring us along a path of thinking that might determine a new generation against letting such conflicts ever happen again.

‘One Minute’s Silence’ has received a number of Awards

Winner 2015 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards – Children’s Fiction
Honour Book 2015 CBCA Book of the Year Awards- Picture Book of the Year
Shortlisted 2015 Western Australian Young Readers Book Award – Picture Books
Shortlisted 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards -Premier’s Prize for Writing for
Children
Shortlisted 2016 Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature
Children’s Literature Award.

1. Copyright Agency Limited. Reading Australia 2022.Teaching notes by Wendy Bean for ‘One Minute’s Silence’ by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri https://readingaustralia.com.au/lesson/one-minutes-silence/
2. Australian Government Office of the Arts. Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2015 “One Minutes’ Silence’ by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri. Includes the Judge’s report. https://www.arts.gov.au/pm-literary-awards/current-awards/one-minutes-silence
3. The Never Ending Bookshelf Blog 20 April 2016. Jess discusses “One Minute’s Silence by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri https://nevendbookshelf.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/review-one-minutes-silence-by-david-metzenthen-illustrated-by-michael-camilleri/
4. Reading Time 16 January 2015. Maurice Saxby reviews ‘One Minute’s Silence’ by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri https://readingtime.com.au/one-minutes-silence/
5. Australian War Memorial ‘Gallipoli’ https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/gallipoli
6. Australian War Memorial ‘Ataturk’ (Mustafa Kemal) https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/ataturk
7. Overview of the life and career of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk
8. Overview of the career of David Metzenthen https://biography.jrank.org/pages/2085/Metzenthen-David-1958.html