AustLit

'This chapter explores how Australian writers and illustrators in the twenty-first century depict the act of mothering in picture books for young children in relation to cooking and serving food. It draws on the idea that children’s texts can be understood as sites of cultural production and reproduction, with social conventions and ideologies embedded in their narrative representations. The analysis is based on a survey of 124 books that were shortlisted for, or won, Children’s Book Council of Australia awards between 2001 and 2013. Of the eighty-seven titles that contain food and have human or anthropomorphised characters, twenty-six (30 percent) contain textual or illustrative references to maternal figures involved in food preparation or provision. Examination of this data set reveals that there is a strong correlation between non-Anglo-Australian maternal figures and home-cooked meals, and a clear link between Anglo-Australian mothers and sugar-rich snacks. The relative paucity of depictions of ethnically unmarked mothers offering more nutritious foods is notable given the cultural expectations of mothers as caretakers of their children’s well-being. At the same time, the linking of non-Anglo-Australian mothers with home-cooked meals can be seen as a means of signifying a cultural authenticity, a closeness to the earth that is differentiated from the normalised Australian culture represented in picture books. This suggests an unintended alignment of mothers preparing and serving meals with “otherness,” which creates a distancing effect between meals that may generally be considered nutritious and the normalised self. I contend there are unexamined, and perhaps unexpected, cultural assumptions about ethnicity, motherhood, and food embedded in contemporary Australian picture books. These have the potential to inscribe a system of beliefs about gender, cultural identity, and food that contributes to readers’ understanding of the world and themselves.'

Source: Abstract.

Sheahan-Bright explores '...the growth in publishing by Indigenous writers and publishers, and of writing on Indigenous cultural themes, and some of the issues which confront publishers when dealing with Indigenous writers and illustrators' (8). The article begins with some background, and points out that despite a cultural and artistic heritage that dates back thousands of years, Indigenous writing and publishing has not been widely recognised in mainstream Australian until most recently and Sheahan-Bright says "This is despite their having been engaged in colonial conflict and later subject to the...assimilation policies which discouraged involvement with European notions of literacy" (8). She discusses the origins of the Indigenous publishing houses Aboriginal Studies Press (ASP), Institute of Aboriginal Development (IAD Press), Magabala Books, Keeaira Press, Black Ink Press, Indij Readers and briefly refers to the above mentioned texts in the section entitled 'what's being published'. This leads into a summary of the five main issues in relation to Indigenous publishing and the 'need for authenticity in writing about Indigenous peoples and culture' (11). Sheahan-Bright lists these issues as 'respect for country and Indigenous control of material', relevance of copyright issues, lack of understanding from non-Indigenous Australians, the need to consider 'protocol, specific authority, appropriation' and finally, to develop an awareness of the social factors that contribute to the socially and economically disadvantaged position of the majority of Indigenous Australians. She argues that 'knowledge of Indigenous culture is a genuine part of Australian culture ...and the publishing output should reflect that' (12). However, she concludes that while 'there has been growth in publishing Indigenous voices in English', in general, 'there are many miles still to be travelled and many seeds still to be sown' (12)