Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa - When We Go Walkabout by Rhoda Lalara
Ill. by Alfred Lalara. Allen & Unwin and The Little Big Book
Club, 2014. ISBN 9781743314562.
Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa, amiyembena yirrirringka yirruwa?
When we go walkabout, what do we see?
The beautiful landscapes and fauna of Groote Eylandt are brought to
life in this unique dual-language picture book which introduces very
young children to their unique surroundings. There is the
frill-necked lizard - dukwululuwawa - on the big rock; the green
frog - dilyaburnda - in the billabong; the wallaby - yiburada - in
the scrub and many more right through to the dingarrbiya and the
yikurridangwa!! And then back home, after the walkabout is complete,
there is someone special - the person who first introduced the
author and illustrator to their environment and who inspired the
book because they want to be able to share the wonders with their
own grandchildren in time.
This is a remarkable book for many reasons . . .
Apart from the text written in both Anindilyakwa and English - the
two-way learning that is the best way for indigenous children to
become literate in both English and their mother-tongue - the
artworks which are a collaboration between the illustrator Alfred
Lalara and his wife Alice Durilla, are an integral part of passing
on knowledge embedded in traditional stories and thus a critical
part of the book as a whole. The stories of how Alfred and his wife
learned to paint in the traditional style, and Rhoda's motive for
writing When We Go Walkabout make fascinating reading at the
end of the book. Clearly it is one of those rare titles that
entertains, informs and persuades at the same time.
The book itself is the first of the Emerging Indigenous Picture Book
Mentoring Project, a partnership between the Little Big Book Club
and Allen & Unwin in which six previously unpublished Indigenous
writers and illustrators will have their work showcased in four
picture books during 2014. Each creator has been partnered with a
renowned mentor in children's publishing including Nadia Wheatley,
Ken Searle, Nick Bland, Ann James, Bronwyn Bancroft, Boori Monty
Pryor and Ali Cobby Eckermann to share ideas, techniques and
inspiration for their first published work. The project has been
funded by the federal government through the Australia Council and
it means that not only will our cohort of children's writers be
enriched but our students will have access to authentic texts that
will work towards the understanding and harmony between our cultures
that is at the heart of so many of the Australian Curriculum
outcomes.
Even though the publishers suggest this is a book for the 0-5
brigade, Miss Nearly 8 and I shared and thoroughly enjoyed it. It
sparked a discussion about how other Australian children speak
different languages and how much fun that could be and because we
live where we do, we see some of the creatures like wallabies and
cockatoos daily, we tried saying the new names we had learned. It
helped that we could listen
to Rhoda Lara read it to us. (There's a QR code in the back of the
book.) We also talked about how the story was written so the
language and knowledge could be passed through the generations on
Groote Eylandt and what she had learned from her grandmother (me)
and what of that she might pass on to her own children. That was a
fascinating insight and showed that getting children to talk about
such things is a critical way of helping them understand both their
family history and their place in it.
Usually I give my review copies to a local school, but Miss Nearly 8
asked if she could have this one. She wanted to read it again and
think about it some more - and then write a story for her
grandchildren!! The best stories always go beyond the lines, and
this has clearly done that.
Barbara Braxton