Library News

Our Library, Our stories

In 2022 we have been reminded of the powerful messages that stories offer us from two prominent authors for young people, Phillip Gwynne and Boori Monty Pryor. Both these authors write candid and often confronting stories (and often with tongue-in-cheek humour) that are grounded in personal experience. Through their stories and protagonists, the authors often ask the reader to consider life from less than ideal perspectives and so prompt us to empathise with the situations and the perspectives of others. Both these authors have written novels for young adults, however their visits to our Year 7 & 8 students highlighted the power and thought-provoking messages of the picture story book.

Phillip Gwynne in ‘Song of the White Ibis’  challenges the reader to see beyond stereo-types; for example,that we only see the White Ibis scavenging through rubbish, when indeed they represent an important link in our ecosystem; an ecosystem humans have been destroying with urban development.

Student Quote: I liked how he (Phillip Gwynne) responded by giggling  when I told him about the prank I played on my sister when I was in Srilanka - Dominic

In ‘Story Doctors’, author Boori Monty Pryor celebrates how the power of storytelling can unite us,how nature connects us, and the wonderful truth that the medicine needed for healing is within us all. Written as an evocative poem, ‘Story Doctors’’ fosters the  healing of humanity through restoring our relationship with the earth. Drawing on thousands of years of First Nations knowledge, this poem speaks of what Pryor calls the ‘eco echoes’ and focuses on the importance of connection and communion between humans and animals, as well as between one another after two hundred years of suffering, as he relates ‘Now all of us, we dance in dust, harsh but honour-bound, to dance this new-found sound’ (Pryor, 2021).

Pryor, B.M. (2021). Story Doctors. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Ms Sendeckyj

Library