Reading: Year 5 Great Reads

Themes:

NAT AMOORE is a Sydney-based writer who is passionate about encouraging kids to read, write and explore their imagination without boundaries. Her debut novel Secrets Of A Schoolyard Millionaire came out in 2019 with Penguin Random House. It had great success as both Dymocks and QBD's 'Kids Book Of The Month', becoming Australia's #1 bestselling debut Aussie children’s fiction in 2019. It has now been sold into the UK, US, Italy, China, Estonia and Romania. Her second book The Power Of Positive Pranking was released in 2020, and was shortlisted for the Readings Children’s Book Prize and REAL Children’s Choice Book Awards. It went on to win the 2021 Environment Award for Children’s Literature. The Right Way To Rock came out in June 2021 and Nat is super excited to be celebrating her latest release We Run Tomorrow, a novel/graphic novel hybrid that hits stores in May 2022. She also has a short story in Total Quack Up Again!

Mike Barry is a writer, illustrator, colorist, letterer, designer, and creator of Action Tank.  He lives in North Balgowlah, Australia, with his two sons, both under the age of ten.  His children inspired him to create his comic series.  Mike said,"I wanted to make a comic I could hand to my kids, and others their age, that would respect their intelligence, tap into their sense of humor, feed their love of adventure, and help them discover some of the endless possibilities of comic-book storytelling."  Contrary to popular rumors, he does not ride about on a kangaroo.  He rides a bike.

Author Note

Australia's Great Dividing Range is the location for all the events mentioned in these early newspaper reports. This often rugged and mountainous range runs for over 3,500 kilometres along the east coast of Australia, through Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Vast areas of the range are still covered in deep inaccessible forest.

'Yahoo' was used repeatedly along the Great Dividing Range (though apparently nowhere else in Australia). There's Yahoo Gully, Yahoo Hill, Yahoo Range, Yahoo Brush, Yahoo Island, Yahoo's Point, Yahoo Peaks, Little Yahoo Mountain, Yahoo Road (used twice) and Yahoo Creek (used five times).

Yahoo Creek includes the words of Ngiyampaa Elder Peter Williams, which are integral to the telling of this story. Most importantly, they show another way of viewing what is in the old newspaper reports. I am deeply thankful to Uncle Pete for permission to quote him in this book. About his words, in particular those on page 32, Uncle Pete says: 'This is what I was taught from my Elder Uncle Paul Gordon.'

The Blue Mountains is the country of the Dharug and Gundungurra peoples - they are the traditional custodians of this land, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present.                                                                                                                              Tohby Riddle