Bush, City, Cyberspace (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bush, City, Cyberspace John Cohen (bio) Bush, City, Cyberspace. By John Foster, Ern Finnis, and Maureen Nimon. Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, 2006. The beginning of Australian children's literature is defined by the publication of Charlotte Barton's A Mother's Offering to Her Children (1841). The book was written as a structured set of questions and answers between a mother and her children. Over 150 years later there is now a flood of publications covering and crossing the genres that has, in a number of instances, joined the international circuit. As the foreword of Bush, City, Cyberspace notes, "The impact of Australian writing on global English-language children's books is based to no small extent on its deep sense of reflectiveness about its history and about contemporary multiculturalism" (ix). In twelve chapters Bush, City, Cyberspace covers both the history and cultural flow of this literature with its place in the global market. The book also acknowledges the role of the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) awards, which for sixty years has influenced, and to some degree shaped, the literary output within Australia. The authors (all associated with the University of South Australia) of this book have chosen, in their own ways, unique foci for their input. The first three chapters by Maureen Nimon explore the developing national identity of Australia. Nimon notes that increasing literacy in the nineteenth century encouraged Christian moral and faith development. Further, the availability of British reading material for young readers helped inculcate a sense of belonging to the British Empire. Certainly as Australian writers added their voices to the literary market this sense of belonging was further strengthened, although the theme of being uniquely Australian was starting to emerge. With Mary Grant Bruce's Billabong books taking center stage in the first part of the twentieth century, the Australian image started to increase. In her examination of the primary literature, Nimon looks closely at this phenomenon and highlights the importance of such international events as the Gallipoli campaign of World War I and the developing legend associated with this. The ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) image has increasingly permeated Australian culture, although some modifications to a rather fierce nationalistic pride can be seen in more recent book titles. In Flanders Fields, by Norman Jorgensen and Brian Harrison-Lever (2002), and Jackie French's Soldier on the Hill (1997) and Hitler's Daughter (1999) are cited as examples of how an earlier enemy has been rehabilitated. John Foster looks at the treatment of indigenous Australians. Foster notes that, until recently, Australian Aborigines have been either treated negatively or patronizingly in children's books. Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's autobiographical works—The Little [End Page 71] Black Princess: A True Tale of Life in the Never-Never-Land (1903) and We of the Never-Never (1908)—have been attacked, from the distance of time, as being racist and patronizing. In recent times books that deal with indigenous themes have moved between myths and legends, on the one hand, and realistic novels on the other. Works by Patricia Wrightson broke new territory in the latter regard in the 1960s and 1970s. Aboriginal authors such as Dick Roughsey and Arone Raymond Meeks have given an ethnic voice to the literature. John Marsden and Shaun Tan's The Rabbits (1998) is picked up in the chapter on picture books; through its visual metaphor the book examines the "invasion" of Australia by the European. Ern Finnis talks about the high drama of this picture book, which might be seen by some as being too politically correct. The rabbit invasion is not just about overwhelming Aboriginal culture and life but also about the despoiling of the land and its environment. Finnis examines the environment in Australian children's literature and its effects on the characters. Hesba Brinsmead's Pastures of the Blue Crane (1964) shows the transformation of a city girl into a woman at home in the rural environment when she inherits a farm in Queensland. The tensions between city and country and between being one with the land and expressing wariness of its vastness and dangers are...