Australian children's literature and postcolonialism: A review essay

Abstract

he theme of land and country is resonant in Australian children's literature with Aboriginal subject matter. he textual and visual narratives present counter-discourse strategies to challenge the colonial ideology and dominant valuation of the Australian landscape. his review essay begins by examining the colonial history of seeing Australia as an “empty space”, naming, and appropriating the land by erasing Aboriginal presence from the land. hen it explores the conceptual re-investment of Aboriginal connections to country in the representation of Australian landscape, as relected and re-imagined in iction and non-iction for child readers. hereby, as the essay suggests, a shared and reconciliatory space can at least discursively be negotiated and envisioned.