In My Blood It Runs, directed by Maya Newell, is an intimate and compassionate observational documentary from the perspective of a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy in Alice Springs, Australia, struggling to balance his traditional Arrernte/Garrwa upbringing with a state education.

Adult Nonfiction

Behrendt, Larissa. Finding. UQP, 2016.
A vital Aboriginal perspective on colonial storytelling Indigenous lawyer and writer Larissa Behrendt has long been fascinated by the story of Eliza Fraser, who was purportedly captured by the local Butchulla people after she was shipwrecked on their island in 1836. In this deeply personal book, Behrendt uses Eliza's tale as a starting point to interrogate how Aboriginal people – and indigenous people of other countries – have been portrayed in their colonizers' stories. Citing works as diverse as Robinson Crusoe and Coonardoo, she explores the tropes in these accounts, such as the supposed promiscuity of Aboriginal women, the Europeans' fixation on cannibalism, and the myth of the noble savage. Ultimately, Behrendt shows how these stories not only reflect the values of their storytellers but also reinforce those values – which in Australia led to the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the laws enforced against them.

Broome, Richard. Aboriginal Australians: A History Since 1788. Allen & Unwin, 2019.
Richard Broome tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians: those who lost most in the early colonial struggle for power. Surveying over two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, he shows how white settlers steadily supplanted the original inhabitants, from the shining coasts to inland deserts, by sheer force of numbers, disease, technology and violence. He also tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation, and traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of a settler society to a more central place in modern Australia.

Grant, Stan. Australia Day. Harper Collins, 2019.
In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian. A sad, wise, beautiful, reflective and troubled book, Australia Day asks the questions that have to be asked, that no else seems to be asking. Who are we? What is our country? How do we move forward from here?

Leahy, Cathy and Ryan, Judith. Colony: Australia 1779-1861/Frontier Wars. Thames & Hudson Australia Pty, Limited, 2019.
It is now over 250 years since James Cook and his crew set sail in the Endeavour to explore the Pacific. In 1770 they reached the east coast of a continent that has been inhabited for more than 65,000 years by many indigenous groups with different languages and diverse cultures. Cook’s landing marked the beginning of a history that still has repercussions today, a history that both unites and divides Australia and highlights the continuing need for reconciliation. Colony explores the immediate and far-reaching impact of British colonisation of Australia through historical, twentieth-century and contemporary art. Through 1000 essential pieces of our cultural heritage, this book highlights the confronting and complex perspectives of the shared history of First Peoples and European settlers.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. Talking Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. University of Queensland Press, 2002.
In this accessible and provocative analysis of the whiteness of Australian feminism the author applies academic training and cultural knowledge in revealing the invisible position of power and privilege in feminist practice. This is a uniquely Australian contribution to the increasing global discourse on feminism and race.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession.
Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have their roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies literature is central to Moreton-Robinson’s reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness—displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of settler colonialism.Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of how the prerogatives of white possession function within the role of disciplines.

Morgan, Sally. My Place. Seaver Books, 1988.
Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother's birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigine--information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

NPY Women's Council Aboriginal Corporation. Traditional Healers of the Central Desert, 2013.
This book contains unique stories and imagery and primary source material: the ngangkari speak directly to the reader. Ngangkari are senior Aboriginal people authorized to speak publicly about Anangu (Western Desert language speaking Aboriginal people) culture and practices. It is accurate, authorized information about their work, in their own words.
The practice of traditional healing is still very much a part of contemporary Aboriginal society. The ngangkari currently employed at NPY Women’s Council deliver treatments to people across a tri-state region of about 350,000 sq km, in more than 25 communities in SA, WA and NT. Acknowledged, respected and accepted these ngangkari work collaboratively with hospitals and health professionals even beyond this region, working hand in hand with Western medical practitioners.

Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?Magala Books, 2014.
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing - behaviors inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.

Pearson, Noel. Up from the Mission: Selected Writings. Black Inc., 2011.
Pearson evokes his early life in Hope Vale, Queensland. He includes sections of his epoch-making essay Our Right To Take Responsibility, which exposed the trap of passive welfare and proposed new ways forward. There are pieces on the apology; on Barack Obama and black leadership; on Australian party politics – Keating, Howard and Rudd; and on alcoholism, despair and what can be done to mend aboriginal communities that have fallen apart.

Pederson, Howard and Woorunmurra, Banjo.Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance. Magabala Books, 1995.
The true story of the Aboriginal resistance fighter, Jandamarra, whose legend is etched into the Australian landscape. Set in the Kimberley outback during the late nineteenth century, the last stage of Australia's invasion is played out in the lands of the Bunuba people. Leases are marked across Aboriginal country and, amidst the chaos and turmoil, extraordinary and sometimes contradictory relationships develop. A powerful collaboration between a non-Indigenous historian and the Indigenous custodians of the Jandamarra story.

Reynolds, Henry. The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. NewSouth Publishing, 2006.
The publication of this book in 1981 profoundly changed the way in which we understand the history of relations between indigenous Australians and European settlers. It has since become a classic of Australian history. Drawing from documentary and oral evidence, the book describes in meticulous and compelling detail the ways in which Aborigines responded to the arrival of Europeans. Henry Reynolds' argument that the Aborigines resisted fiercely was highly original when it was first published and is no less challenging today.

Tilmouth, William. 7 August, 2018. “Indigenous Children do not need to be fixed – they need rights and opportunities.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/07/indigenous-children-dont-need-to-be-fixed-they-need-rights-and-opportunities
In this article, a key advisor on In My Blood it Runs examines the deficit views that Western schooling structures, systems, and practices placed upon Aboroginal children and advocates for a contemporary approach to educating indigenous children in ways that support their identity-formation and honors their ancestral heritage as Aborginal children.

Turner, Margaret Kemarre. Iwenhe Tyerrtye: What It Means to Be an Aboriginal Person. IAD Press, 2010.
Written from the heart of Australia’s central deserts by Dujan’s grandmother, a respected Arrernte elder, this account explains the Australian Aboriginal approach to kinship in personal and poetic terms. Revealing a sophisticated and robust culture deeply connected to its native land, this book describes the far-reaching and penetrating organization of every respectful relationship—such as those between family members, amongst the society as a whole, and with regard to the denizen plants and animals. Through story-telling, the aboriginal community as well as non-Indigenous peoples will come to appreciate this fascinating culture.

Wright, Alexis. Tracker.Artarmon, Australia: Giramondo Publishing, 2017.
Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council of the Northern Territory.
Tracker was a visionary, a strategist and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his determination to tell things the way he saw them. Having known him for many years, Alexis Wright interviewed Tracker, along with family, friends, colleagues, and the politicians he influenced, weaving his and their stories together in a manner reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize–winning author Svetlana Alexievich. The book is as much a testament to the powerful role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of an extraordinary man.

Behrendt, Larissa. Home. UQP, 2004.
A story of homecoming, this absorbing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at "the place where the rivers meet", the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice's Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away. Garibooli, renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master's night-time visits. Her displacement carries into the lives of her seven children - their stories witness to the impact of orphanage life and the consequences of having a dark skin in post-war Australia. Vividly rekindled, the lives of her family point the direction home for Candice. Home is a powerful and intelligent first novel from an author who understands both the capacity of language to suppress and the restorative potency of stories that bridge past and present.

Birch, Tony. White Girl. UQP. 2019.
A searing new novel from leading Indigenous storyteller Tony Birch that explores the lengths we will go to in order to save the people we love. Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves. In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.

Chi, Jimmy & Knuckles. Bran Nue Dae: A Musical Journey. Currency Press, 1991.
Willy and Old Uncle Tadpole flee the city to embark on a journey of personal discovery and outrageous adventures back to their Aboriginal homeland

Keneally, Thomas. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.HarperCollins – AU, 2013.
When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman, the backlash from both Jimmie's tribe and white society initiates a series of dramatic events. As Jimmie tries to survive between two cultures, tensions reach a head when the Newbys, Jimmie's white employers, try to break up his marriage. the Newby women are murdered and Jimmie flees, pursued by police and vigilantes. The hunt intensifies as further murders are committed, and concludes with tragic results. Thomas Keneally's fictionalized account of the 1900 killing spree of half-Aboriginal Jimmy Governor is a powerful story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.

Lucashenko, Melissa. Too Much Lip. UQP, 2019.
A dark and funny new novel from the multi-award-winning author of Mullumbimby. Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things – her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she’s an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble – but then trouble is Kerry’s middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible.

Pilkington, Doris. Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence.UQP, 1996.
This is an extraordinary story of courage and faith. It is based on the actual experiences of three girls who fled from the repressive life of Moore River Native Settlement, following along the rabbit-proof fence back to their homelands. Assimilationist policy deemed these girls were taken from their kin and their land in order to be made white.

Scott, Kim. True Country. Freemantle Press, 1993.
Billy, a young school teacher, arrives in Karnama, a remote settlement in Australia’s far north, in search of his own history, his Aboriginality, and his future. Gradually the outsider is drawn in, and finds himself engaging deeply, irrevocably, not only with the moments of desolation and despair, but also with the great heart and spirit of the people. Finally, the exile enters the true country.

Wright, Alexis. The Swan Book. Washington Square Press, 2018.
Oblivia Ethelyne was given her name by an old woman who found her deep in the bowels of a gum tree, tattered and fragile, the victim of a brutal assault by wayward local youths. These are the years leading up to Australia’s third centenary, and the woman who finds her, Bella Donna of the Champions, is a refugee from climate change wars that devastated her country in the northern hemisphere. Bella Donna takes Oblivia to live with her on an old warship in a polluted dry swamp and there she fills Oblivia’s head with story upon story of swans. Fenced off from the rest of Australia by the Army, its traditional custodians left destitute, the swamp has become “the world’s most unknown detention camp” for Indigenous Australians.

Auntie Joy Murphy. Welcome to Country: A Traditional Aboriginal Ceremony. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2016.
Welcome to the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri People. We are part of this land and the land is part of us. This is where we come from. Wominjeka Wurundjeri balluk yearmenn koondee bik. Welcome to Country. Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy is a most respected senior Wurundjeri elder of the Kulin alliance. This is a very accessible welcome that introduces and gives meaning and explanation within the text to the customs and symbols of Indigenous Australia.
Aboriginal communities across Australia have boundaries that are defined by mountain ranges and waterways. Traditionally, to cross these boundaries or enter community country you needed permission from the neighbouring community. When this permission was granted the ceremony now called Welcome to Country took place. Each community had its own way of welcoming to country, and they still do today.

Auntie Joy Murphy. Wilam:A Birrarung Story. AU, Walker Books Australia, 2019.
In this stunning picture book beautifully given form by Indigenous artist Lisa Kennedy, respected Elder Aunty Joy Murphy and Yarra Riverkeeper Andrew Kelly tell the story of one day in the life of the vital, flourishing Birrarung (Yarra river).

Dickson, John, illustrated by Bern Emmerichs. The Good, the Bad and the Silly. Berbay Publishing, 2019.
The Good, the Bad and the Silly is a taste of the intriguing history of Australia to alert young readers of the storytelling treasures to be unearthed in Australia’s settlement history.

Langton, Marcia. Welcome to Country: An Introduction to our First Peoples for Young Australians. Explore Australia, 2019.
Written by one of Australia’s most prominent Indigenous voices, Welcome to Country is essential reading for every young Australian. The chapters cover prehistory, post-colonial history, language, kinship, knowledge, art, performance, storytelling, native title, the Stolen Generations, making a rightful place for First Australians and looking to the future for Indigenous Australia. This book is for the new Australian generations and works towards rectifying the wrongs of this country’s past.

Morgan, Sally. Remembered by Heart. Fremantle Press, 2014.
A collection of powerful, true stories of Aboriginal life, this anthology brings together 15 memoirs of growing up Aboriginal in Australia. It includes works from Kim Scott, Australia's first indigenous Miles Franklin winner, bestselling author Sally Morgan, and the critically acclaimed artist, author, and activist Bronwyn Bancroft. These true stories of adolescence are as diverse as they are moving, and offer readers insight into the pain, humor, grief, hope, and pride that makes up Indigenous experiences.

One Arm Point Remote Community School. Our World: Bardi Jaawi Life at Ardiyooloon. Magabala Books, 2010.
Ardiyooloon is home to the Bardi Jaawi people and sits at the end of a red dirt road at the top of the Dampier Peninsula, 200 km north of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This vibrant book is bursting with life and activity and takes readers inside the lives of the children of a remote Indigenous community.

Pascoe, Bruce. Young, Dark Emu: A Truer History. Magala Books, 2019.
Using the accounts of early European explorers, colonists and farmers, Bruce Pascoe compellingly argues for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. He allows the reader to see Australia as it was before Europeans arrived – a land of cultivated farming areas, productive fisheries, permanent homes, and an understanding of the environment and its natural resources that supported thriving villages across the continent. Young Dark Emu - A Truer History asks young readers to consider a different version of Australia's history pre-European colonization.

Harrison, Jane. Becoming Kirrali Lewis. Magabala Books, 2015.
Set within the explosive cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1980s, Becoming Kirrali Lewis chronicles the journey of a young Aboriginal teenager as she leaves her home town in rural Victoria to take on a law degree in Melbourne in 1985. Adopted at birth by a white family, Kirrali doesn’t question her cultural roots until a series of life-changing events force her to face up to her true identity.

McDonald, Meme and Pryor, Boori Monty. My Girragundji. Allen & Unwin, 1998.
The story of an Aboriginal boy whose house is invaded by a Hairyman – a spirit the old people call a Quinkin. When a little green tree frog lands on his windowsill, he knows she has been sent by the ancestors to help him face his fears.

McKenna, Brenton E. The Legend of the Phoenix Dragon. Magabala Books, 2011.
Set in the 1940s when the pearling town of Broome is recovering from World War II, The Legend of the Phoenix Dragon is an epic tale that follows the heroics of Ubby, a street-wise Aboriginal girl and the leader of a rag-tag gang known as the ‘Underdogs’. When Ubby recruits Sai Fong, a Chinese girl off the boat from Shanghai, they are thrown into a series of bizarre adventures full of myths and legends, and secrets never before exposed. McKenna’s first volume of the Ubby’s Underdogs trilogy leaves you gasping for air and hungry for more.

Merrison, Carl and Hustler, Hakea. Black Cockatoo.Magabala Books, 2018.
Black Cockatoo is a vignette that follows Mia, a young Aboriginal girl as she explores the fragile connections of family and culture. Mia is a 13-year-old girl from a remote community in the Kimberley. She is saddened by the loss of her brother as he distances himself from the family. She feels powerless to change the things she sees around her, until one day she rescues her totem animal, the dirran black cockatoo, and soon discovers her own inner strength. A wonderful small tale on the power of standing up for yourself, culture and ever-present family ties

Nunukul, Oodgeroo, illustrated by Bronwyn Bancroft. Stradbroke Dreamtime. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999.
Stradbroke Dreamtime is a collection of 27 short stories, ideal for reading in class, from acclaimed Aboriginal author Oodgeroo. The stories are traditional Aboriginal tales from Stradbroke Island, the tambourine Mountains and from the Old and New dreamtime. A bright, beautiful and unique colour illustrated book, paired with Dreamtime tales just for younger readers.

Sedunary, Michael, illustrated by Bern Emmerichs. The Unlikely Story of Bennelong and Phillip. Berbay Publishing, 2016.
This extraordinary story about the friendship between Captain Arthur Phillip and the Aboriginal, Bennelong, is one of Australia’s most important and intriguing stories, yet remains largely unknown. The background of first settlement in Australia (when the first fleet arrived) heightens the polarity between the two worlds of these two people. Traditional Aboriginal culture and values versus European culture and values.