Somebody’s Land: Shared Reading

Tomorrow in my home country, it is a National Holiday. It’s called Australia Day – and is supposed to be a day where we can come together and celebrate all the good things in this wonderful country of ours.

Unfortunately, however, the date for this holiday makes it difficult for many of us to celebrate. Currently, the date of Australia Day is also the date that Australia was invaded by white people – and began our terrible history of mistreatment of the First Nations people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

As a child I celebrated Australia Day. As an adult, with all I have learned about our history, I choose not to celebrate it until we change the date.

Instead, I have chosen to do a shared reading of a beautiful book by Adam Goodes, Ellie Laing and David Hardy called “Somebody’s Land“. This is my way of acknowledging that Australia was, is, and always will be, Aboriginal land. I use a 20 cell expanded Pragmatically Organised Dynamic Display (PODD) book to make language visible during this shared reading – and I hope you enjoy the book as much as I do.

And for those of you interested in incorporating more books by Aboriginal authors and/or illustrators in your shared reading libraries, I have started a Pinterest board of my favourites.