created a contemporary fantasy where ancient folk-spirits (not of the secret-sacred
variety) meet and work with a young fringedwelling Aborigine. She does not claim ‘inside
knowledge’ of Aboriginal cultures but her work’s poetic resonance appeals to her readers
for its inclusion of folklore which originates from the Australian continent, rather than
those far away lands of Europe. Such creative endeavours have prompted Driver (1993)
to compile a register of Aboriginal folk-spirits for use by future readers and scholars.
One section of the volume lists folk-spirits whose existence has been confirmed by
Aboriginal people in touch with their ‘country and customs of origin’; the appendix,
almost as large, lists folk-spirits represented in the writings of Causcasian Australia
which are yet to be confirmed—or denied—by specific tribal groups.
Ivan Southall and Colin Thiele (both translated into many languages) were also writing
during this period. Southall’s narratives grew from the post-war excitement of flight (and
space flight) in his Simon Black books, to explorations of the hazards of children facing
the natural disasters of the land. His exacting and introspective works such as Josh
(1971) were yet to come. Thiele drew on a German background and his engaging
humour provoked by incidents as innocent as a possum in the kitchen were embedded
in a rich appreciation of language. The wonder of the intense interaction between a boy
and a pelican are known internationally through the book and film, Storm Boy (1974).
By 1967, Australian children’s literature was able to parody the nation’s eulogising of
its rogues and thieves—the Wild Colonial Boy and the bushrangers— in the work of
Randolph Stow’s Midnite. Ironic treatment of a national hero is surely a sign of a nation
self-consciously reflecting on its history and its identity. This was in fact, happening in a
political sense, when in 1966 Australia entered the Vietnam conflict. The students who
were present at the mass demonstrations against Australia’s involvement in Vietnam,
and who joined the activities of Amnesty International, became the scholars of children’s
literature in the universities during the 1970s, humanitarian ideals being the thread as
much as literary scholarship.
Educational authorities were obliged to respond to the post-war increase in the birth
rate and the influx of immigrants: more schools were built, returned servicemen entered
the teaching force, studentships became available thus increasing voluntary school
retention rates (to year twelve) of secondary schooling. These young people became
librarians and teachers who graduated from the rapidly expanding Teachers Colleges
and Colleges of Advanced Education. Tertiary courses gradually added the study of
children’s literature as an integral part of their training programmes. The Library
Association of Australia required the study of children’s literature of all its graduates.
Public libraries and school libraries gradually increased with the Commonwealth
government subsidising secondary schools libraries (from 1968). This political
endorsement effectively increased young people’s access to books. The national research
project, Children’s Choice (Bunbury 1995), which explored children’s reading
preferences, at school and at home, reported that the most important source of books
for young people’s reading was not those so lovingly presented as gifts at home, but the
school library. In the 1990s, when Australia consciously strives to become ‘a clever
country’, government sponsorship still seeks ways of increasing the youthful reading
public; an example is to be found in the ‘book gigs’ at St Martin’s Youth Theatre,
organised by Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, where authors meet their readers after youthful
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