SHAUN TAN is an artist, writer and film-maker based in Melbourne. His illustrated books for both adults and children include The Rabbits, The Red Tree, Rules of Summer, Tales from Outer Suburbia and the acclaimed wordless novel The Arrival. In 2011 he received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden, and an Academy Award for his short animated film The Lost Thing.
DR JARED THOMAS is a Nukunu person of the Southern Flinders Ranges. Jared’s play Flash Red Ford toured Uganda and Kenya in 1999 and his play Love, Land and Money featured during the 2002 Adelaide Fringe Festival. Jared’s young adult novel Sweet Guy was shortlisted for the South Australian and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and his children’s novel Dallas Davis, the Scientist and the City Kids is published in the Oxford University Press Yarning Strong series. His latest novel Calypso Summer won the 2013 State Library of Queensland black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship, was shortlisted in the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and joined the 2015 International Youth Library White Ravens List – given to books that deserve worldwide attention because of their universal themes and exceptional artistic and literary style and design. His professional career has included roles such as Manager, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts, Arts South Australia and lecturer at the University of South Australia.
FIONA WOOD is the author of Six Impossible Things, Wildlife and Cloudwish. Six Impossible Things was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year, Older Readers in 2011. Wildlife won the CBCA Award in 2014 and was shortlisted for a number of other awards. Cloudwish won the 2016 Indie Book Award for YA fiction, and is longlisted for the 2016 Gold Inky Award. Her books are published internationally. Before writing YA fiction, Fiona wrote television scripts. She lives in Melbourne with her family.
MARKUS ZUSAK is the author of five novels: The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, When Dogs Cry, The Messenger and The Book Thief.
About the Indigenous Literacy Foundation
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) was founded by Suzy Wilson and set up by members of the Australian Book Industry in 2005 with the core aim of drawing upon the skills and expertise of the Australian book industry to address literacy levels in remote Indigenous communities.
The ILF aims to raise literacy levels and improve the lives and opportunities of Indigenous children living in remote and isolated regions. This is done through the delivery of books and literacy resources, publishing and an early literacy program called Book Buzz. In addition, the Foundation advocates to raise community awareness of Indigenous literacy issues.
Set up in 2011, the Foundation is a not-for-profit charity, without any government or major corporate funding. It works with the support of the Australian Publishers Association, the Australian Booksellers Association and the Australian Society of Authors, along with a team of ambassadors, volunteers and four full-time staff.
The Foundation’s major fundraising campaign, the Great Book Swap, is held on Indigenous Literacy Day, the first Wednesday in September each year.
Books Mentioned in the Collection
Adam’s Empire by Evan Green
Adventures of the Wishing-Chair by Enid Blyton
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery
Archie Comics by Archie Comic Publications, Inc
Armada Book for Girls by (Various)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Ask Annie (Sweet Dreams #17) by Suzanne Rand
Astro Boy series by Osamu Tezuka
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
Australia’s Heritage by Frank Mutsaers
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M Martin
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
The Bastable series by E Nesbit
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Black Jack series by Osamu Tezuka
Blankets by Craig Thompson
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Bunchy by Joyce Lankester Brisley
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Calypso Summer by Jared Thomas
Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden
The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
The Children of Green Knowe by LM Boston
The Children of the New Forest by Capt. Frederick Marryat
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
Climb a Lonely Hill by Lilith Norman
Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson
Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease
Displaced Person by Lee Harding
Doraemon Series by Fujiko Fujio
Dragon Ball Z series by Akira Toriyama
Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiboken series by Riku Sanjo & Koji Inada
The Dreaming by Queenie Chan
Drovers Road by Joyce West
Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula Le Guin
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
Ethel & Ernest: A True Story by Raymond Briggs
The Family of Man by Edward Steichen
Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
Farewell to Shady Glade by Bill Peet
Farmer Giles of Ham by JRR Tolkien
The Faraway Tree Series by Enid Blyton
Fish in the Sky by George Mendoza & Milton Glaser
The Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser
Flash Red Ford (play) by Jared Thomas
Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews
Fox by Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks
Free Lunch by Vivian Walsh & J Otto Seibold
Freedom Ride by Sue Lawson
Funerals and Circuses (play) by Roger Bennett
The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey
Gemma by Noel Streatfeild
George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
Going Back by Penelope Lively
The Golden Treasury of Poetry by Louis Untermeyer
The Good Master by Kate Seredy
Grand Days by Frank Moorhouse
The Great Escape from City Zoo by Tohby Riddle
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
Green Eyes (Sweet Dreams #7) by Suzanne Rand
Guitar Highway Rose by Brigid Lowry
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Half Magic by Edward Eager
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight – More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep by Jack
Prelutsky & Arnold Lobel
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Hills End by Ivan Southall
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Hotspur by DC Thomson & Co (publisher)
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
The Iliad by Homer
The Incredible Here and Now by Felicity Castagna
The Island by Armin Greder
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The James Bond series by Ian Fleming
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jolliffe’s Outback by Eric Jolliffe
Josh by Ivan Southall
Lace by Shirley Conran
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
Little Golden Books by (various)
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Love, Land and Money (play) by Jared Thomas
The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall
Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl
Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Megumi no Daigo series by Masahito Soda
Midnite by Randolph Stow
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban
Mr Chicken Goes to Paris by Leigh Hobbs
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg
The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder (Trixie Belden #30) by Kathryn Kenny (pseudonym)
Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene (pseudonym)
The Nargun and the Stars by Patricia Wrightson
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
No Sugar (play) by Jack Davis
The Odyssey by Homer
The Odyssey of Homer by Barbara Leonie Picard
On the Edge (Sweet Valley High #40) by Francine Pascal
Once by Morris Gleitzman
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr Seuss
The Outsiders by SE Hinton 192
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
Pan’s Whisper by Sue Lawson
Pellinor Quartet by Alison Croggon
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Popularity Plan (Sweet Dreams #2) by Rosemary Vernon
The Popularity Summer (Sweet Dreams #20) by Rosemary Vernon
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Preep: the Little Pigeon of Trafalgar Square by Milton Shulman & Dale Maxey
Puberty Blues by Gabrielle Carey & Kathy Lette
QB VII by Leon Uris
The Rabbits by John Marsden & Shaun Tan
The Railway Children by E Nesbit
The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
The Rover by DC Thomson & Co (publisher)
Roy of the Roversby Fleetway Publications (publisher)
Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Rumble Fish by SE Hinton
The Secret Seven Series by Enid Blyton
Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
The Silent Places by Stewart Edward White
Silly Verse for Kids by Spike Milligan
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
Skim by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Smith by Leon Garfield
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
The Spark Series by Rachael Craw
Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith
Stitches by David Small
Summer Lightning and Other Stories by Olive Senior
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Sweet Dreams series by Francine Pascal
Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal
The Summer of the Great Secret by Monica Edwards
The Tenth Power by Kate Constable
Tex by SE Hinton
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Tiger: the Sport & Adventure Picture Story Weekly by Fleetway Publications (publisher)
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Tree and Leaf by JRR Tolkien
Trixie Belden Series by Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny (pseudonym)
The Trouble with Charlie (Sweet Dreams #24) by Jaye Ellen
The Twits by Roald Dahl
Urusei Yatsura series by Rumiko Takahashi
The Victor by DC Thomson & Co (publisher)
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Waltzing Matilda by AB Paterson
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
When Marnie Was There by Joan G Robinson
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
The White Goddess by Robert Graves
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Wolfe Brothers trilogy by Markus Zusak
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
You Don’t Even Know by Sue Lawson
Zigzag Street by Nick Earls
Writers Mentioned in the Collection
Joan Aiken Edward Lear
Catherine Bateson CS Lewis
The Brothers Grimm Jan Mark
Judy Blume AA Milne
Lewis Carroll E Nesbit
Paul Celan Charles Perrault
Aidan Chambers Christopher Pike
Susan Coolidge Beatrix Potter
Jackie Collins Harold Robbins
Caroline B Cooney Siegfried Sassoon
Fyodor Dostoevsky William Shakespeare
Michel Foucault RL Stine
Kenneth Grahame Dylan Thomas
Alan Garner Dorothy Wall
May Gibbs Jacqueline Wilson
Steven Herrick William Wordsworth
Robin Klein Benjamin Zephaniah
EL Konigsburg
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Sarah Foster and Nicola Robinson for getting things started, and to Mary Verney and the rest of the amazing team at Walker Books Australia for bringing it all together so beautifully. I am so very grateful to the contributors for sharing these delicious slices of their reading lives, and for their generosity in donating their author royalties to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Special thanks to Angelo Loukakis and Pamela Freeman for their personal and professional advice and support.
Published in 2016
by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au
This ebook edition published in 2016
The moral rights of the anthologist and contributors have been asserted.
Anthology and foreword © 2016 Judith Ridge
Individual Essays © 2016 individual contributors
Cover Illustration © 2016 Sarah Wilkins
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
The book that made me / edited by Judith Ridge.
For young adults.
Subjects: Anthologies.
Authors – Australia – Biography.
Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Short stories, Australian.
Australian poetry.
Australian literature.
Other Creators/Contributors: Ridge, Judith, editor.
A820.80994
ISBN: 978-1-925126-89-1 (ePub/mobi)
ISBN: 978-1-925126-88-4 (ePDF)
Credits
“A Feverish Desire to Possess” text © 2016 Randa Abdel-Fattah; “Twelve Reasons” text © 2016 Markus Zusak; “A Short Leap” text © 2016 Cathy Cassidy; “What Happens Next?” text © 2016 Will Kostakis; “The Great Sense of Unease” text © 2016 Mandy Hager, quote on page 46 from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, quote on page 47 from Why I Write by George Orwell, first published in 1947, quote on pages 48/49 from Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell, first published in 1949; “Hooked (and a Bit Unsettled)” text © 2012 Shaun Tan, originally published in 2012 on the blog: About Dinner: A Love Story, reproduced by kind permission; cartoons by Shaun Tan on pages 15,
16, 23, 27, 33, 41, 50, 66, 73, 83, 95, 103, 111, 132, 143, 151, 159, 167, 173, 181, 195, 203, 210, 233 and 234 were originally created for and appeared on the National Year of Reading 2012 website. We thank the National Year of Reading library founder partners for their permission to use Shaun’s comics in this book. Read more about the Love2Read campaign at http://www.love2read.org.au/; “Thwack!” text © 2016 Fiona Wood, quotes on pages 60, 61, 62, 63 & 65 from Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, first published in 1908; “Becoming Human” text © 2016 Bernard Beckett; “Looking Where I’m Standing” text © 2016 Felicity Castagna, photograph on page 75 © Bill Reda, reproduced with kind permission; “This World is More Than What Can Be Seen” text © 2016 Ambelin Kwaymullina; “What the Doctor Recommended” text and illustration © 2016 Queenie Chan; “Of Magic and Memory” text © 2016 Kate Constable; “The Big Scooby-Doo Reveal” text © 2016 Rachael Craw; “Sweet Dreams and Social Fails” text © 2016 Simmone Howell; “Every Disgusting Detail” text © 2016 Benjamin Law; “Challenging the Machinations of Racism” text © 2016 Jared Thomas; “Invested with Enchantment” text © 2016 Alison Croggon; “It Looks Like a Comic” text © 2016 Mal Peet; “My First Reader” text © 2016 Ursula Dubosarsky; “In Folded Arms” text © 2016 Cath Crowley; extracts from Zigzag Street by Nick Earls copyright © Nick Earls 1996. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House Australia Pty Limited & By Arrangement with the Licensor, Nick Earls, c/- Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd; “What Would Edith Do?” text © 2016 Emily Maguire, extracts from Grand Days by Frank Moorhouse Copyright © Frank Moorhouse 2000 Reprinted by permission of Random House Australia Pty Ltd; “Putting the World to Rights” text © 2016 Catherine Mayo; “Beyond the Influence” text © 2016 Ted Dawe, quote on page 170 from The Silent Places by Stewart Edward White, first published 1904; “A Sense of Resolution” text © 2016 Simon French; “Only White People Lived in Books” text © 2016 Catherine Johnson, extract from “The Nutcracker and the Sugar-Tongs” on page 185, first published in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets by Edward Lear in 1871; “Set My Senses Alight” text © 2016 Sue Lawson; “Happy Endings” text © 2016 Brigid Lowry; “You’ll Go Blind: A Cautionary Tale about the Power of Reading” text © 2016 Julia Lawrinson; “Ingenious Decisions” text © 2016 Sue McPherson; “James Remembering” text © 2016 James Roy, extract from Josh by Ivan Southall on page 224 has been reproduced with permission by University of Queensland Press; “Seeing Red” text © 2016 Jaclyn Moriarty.