I have recently joined a team of people at QUT who are starting to develop some English teaching resources for the digital Australian Children’s Literature resource on the Austlit website.

AustLit is currently available at “almost all universities and research libraries around Australia, many municipal libraries and at some universities and research libraries internationally.”

As I started to look into the area today, I became more and more interested in the idea of exploring Australian children’s literature.  I wonder how many old books are lying around out there, in Op shops or Trash and Treasure stalls, waiting to be found…and collected.

I found an interesting site with a bibliography of Australian childrens’ literature authors.  When you click on the names of the listed authors and illustrators, images of their work are often displayed, and these are fascinating.  They make me want to read some books like this one by Pixie O’Harris:

Next time I am at my Nan’s I’m going to raid her bookshelf – hopefully she hasn’t thrown away the picture books she used to read to me as a kid.  They will make an excellent start to my collection!