 | |
| Author | Eve Pownall |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's non-fiction |
| Publisher | John Sands |
Publication date | 1952 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 44pp |
| Preceded by | Cousins-Come-Lately : Adventures in Old Sydney Town |
| Followed by | Five Busy Merry-Makers |
The Australia Book (1952) is a children's information book by Australian author and historian Eve Pownall, illustrated by Margaret Senior. The book won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1952. [1]
The Australia Book documents the history of the country from before European settlement up till the 1950s, when the book was written. It is aimed at younger children and is heavily illustrated.
G.W.H. in The Argus was impressed with the work: "In the simplest language the story is told from the time of the early explorers to the postwar migration schemes. The pictures tell so much that even children too young to read will follow them and establish mental landmarks for use later on. And the parents, whose job will be to read it to them, will probably find that they have filled in a few yawning gaps in their knowledge too. This pictorial record is likely to become one of the juvenile classics for years to come." [2]
The West Australian was equally as enthusiastic: "The Australia Book, although designed for children, will be perused by their elders with equal interest because it sets out in simplest form the history of their country probably more vividly than ever before." [3]
The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked.
Hugh John Lofting was an English American writer, trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character Doctor Dolittle. The fictional physician to talking animals, based in an English village, first appeared in illustrated letters to his children which Lofting sent from British Army trenches in the First World War. Lofting settled in the United States soon after the war and before his first book was published.
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