Words, Images, Voices: Literature for Children and Young Adults - Speaking of Justice
A group of Australian authors and social change agents gathered at Sydney’s Santa Sabina College last week to speak about their writing, social justice, eco justice and human rights issues at the second Words, Images, Voices literary event.
The conference was convened by the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, an organisation which advocates social change by actively participating in a range of relevant campaigns and programs.
Today was going to be about the importance of stories that educate and bring about change; stories which encourage us to look beyond our borders and change our perspective and actions.
We were asked to consider those who were absent, those who don’t have access to these kinds of events or to the opportunities available to others. I thought of our homeless Footpath Library clients who are excluded from many places, including libraries.
The program was divided into three sessions in which several speakers gave themed presentations and then formed a panel to answer audience questions.
First up was Dr Robin Morrow, a strong advocate for Australian children’s literature. A publisher, editor and founder of The Children’s Bookshop in Beecroft, Morrow’s presentation Books as Mirrors, Books as Windows looked at ways in which literature helps us to turn the unimaginable into the imaginable.
Nadia Wheatley spoke about Learning from Country, of her time working with Indigenous communities at Papunya and the current dismantling of the bi-lingual schools program. She emphasised the idea that “Indigenous principles of learning are global principles of learning”.
Mark Raue entertained the audience with his songs
Mark Raue is a founding member of the Pacific Calling Partnership which works towards raising awareness and political support for low-lying nations of the Pacific. These are being affected by climate change and as a musician/composer, raises awareness with song. He performed some of his own songs throughout the day. His talk was about the link that exists between human rights and what we do to the planet. He believes we owe an ‘ecological debt’ to the poor.
The panel was asked when it’s ok to ‘start letting’ children read about confronting subjects and other ‘unpleasant’ social justice issues. I wondered if our young people are so fragile that they need such sheltering? Inevitably, my mind turned to censorship and the fact that Twilight had recently been removed from circulation at Santa Sabina’s junior library, just before Banned Books Week in fact. But that’s another conference altogether!
Nadia Wheatley was asked for her take on an article by Noel Pearson in the Australian about the bi-lingual education program and she said it was not her role as a non-Indigenous person to comment on policies put forward by Indigenous people.
Lynette Riley opened Session Two. A Wiradjuri & Kamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree with over 30 years experience working in Aboriginal education, she is currently Senior Lecturer, Academic Coordinator and Acting Deputy Director at the Koori Centre, University of Sydney. Everyone was spellbound as she sang her welcome to country. Riley spoke about Cultural Bias in Resources and her influential work as a trainer of Aboriginal teachers and other educators.
Maria Boyd is a Sydney-based teacher and author of Will, her first novel. Her interests are ’story, human connection and social justice’. She spoke about writing Will and growing up with an Irish Catholic, ALP background, where she experienced social justice in action from a young age because she and her family were actively involved in helping the poor and disadvantaged.
Libby Hathorn spoke about A Notion of Courage and how she likes to write about ordinary children growing into their potential, learning to stand up for themselves, for social justice and for what is right. She also recited one of her own poems, quoted from poet Wallace Stevens’s wonderful The Man with the Blue Guitar and spoke of her belief in the transformative power of ‘the arts’.
Susanne Gervay, well known for tackling ‘big’ issues like bullying (I am Jack) gave a moving presentation called Butterflies: Literature that Heals. Gervay’s latest novel Butterflies is about a burns victim and she spoke about the intensive research and writing process involved in creating it; she read a lot about burns, consulted burns specialists and met with burns patients. As a result of the enormous popularity of Butterflies, she was invited to speak at the World Burns Conference in New York. She described it as one of the most wonderful experiences of her life. On another level, being burned, ‘surviving the fire’ is all about meeting whatever challenges life throws at us and Gervay says this explains the book’s resonance with young people because it’s about something real. Her next novel will be for readers aged 9 to 12 and will be about breast cancer which she has survived several times.
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Lawyer and human rights activist and member of the Coalition for Peace and Justice in Palestine, Randa Abdel-Fattah is the author of Does My Head Look Big in This? and Ten Things I Hate About Me. She spoke about her new book Where the Streets Had a Name and the false dichotomy between politics and life, particularly with reference to life for Palestinians in Israel. Written over two years, the author said she felt she was living in two worlds—Sydney and occupied Palestine. She says she wanted readers to step into the shoes of a Palestinian boy and girl and to understand what their daily life would be like. The book’s title is a play on U2’s song (Where the Streets Have no Name) and refers to the practice of changing Arabic street names to Israeli street names which occurred after the creation of the state of Israel. She likened this situation to ‘Terra Nullius’ in Australia and made an impassioned plea for justice for her people.
Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi is known as ‘the most stolen library book’ and her fantasy epic Finnikin of the Rock won an Aurealis Award in 2008. She is currently working on her fifth novel, The Piper’s Son. An unplanned sequel to Saving Francesca, it has the character of Tom at its centre, not Francesca and is about a family shattered by grief. She says its targeted readership is actually for readers aged 15 and over, not because it is graphic but merely because the adult relationships it describes are quite complex.
Libby Gleeson says we can write about ‘what we know’ and ‘what we care about’ but we can also ‘write to find out something’. Her interest is in ‘language and story’ and she spoke about the vital element of ‘character’ and how this must be at the heart of any story; a writer has to be immersed in their characters. Her latest novel Mahtab’s Story is based on the life of a girl who had to flee from Afghanistan to Australia. She read from the book and left us with some quotes from The Truth About Stories by Thomas King (Massey Lectures, 2003). “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are”. “Don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.”
Left to Right: Melina Marchetta, Libby Gleeson
Abdel-Fattah was asked if she felt positive about the plight of the Palestinians. She said she felt as desperate about it as her good friend and Australian author Antony Lowenstein who had recently spent some time in Israel. She says she has lost faith in the idea of two-state solution and that one, united democratic state seems the only hope. She said boycotts and sanctions may have some impact.
Someone in the audience noticed that there weren’t many men at this event and postulated that young boys don’t read fiction because it’s not promoted to them and had noticed that they head straight for the non-fiction section of the library. Marchetta disagreed. The perception that ‘men don’t read fiction’ won’t go away. What do you think?
A great day of ideas which gave us all a lot to think about and another pile of books to read!
Words and images © Paula Grunseit 2009
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