Children's literature
Scope of collection
Australian children's literature encompasses literary and artistic genres including poetry, drama, fiction, selected instructional materials and documentary works by Australian writers and illustrators, about Australian subjects or set in Australia for the information and entertainment of children. It includes the history, theory, description and critical appraisal of Australian children's literature with a particular emphasis on literature related to New South Wales from the time of European settlement.
Collecting aims and intentions
The Library aims to collect children's literature associated with New South Wales to document developments in children's literature and support research in a range of subjects. Literary works by Australian writers and illustrators and translations of these into other languages are collected to document the publishing output of Australian printed children's literature with particular emphasis on publications printed in New South Wales or about New South Wales.
Children's materials that reflect Australian attitudes, especially towards family, Australian history, multiculturalism and Indigenous culture, are collected extensively. Titles of Australian interest or with an Australian setting published internationally and designed to tell children about Australia, often in languages other than English, are collected.
The writings of Aboriginal Australians in Aboriginal languages are increasingly being published and are acquired for the collection whenever possible.
Materials that support the study of children's literature are collected in a range of formats including original manuscript and pictorial material, correspondence, publishers' archives and oral history.
Existing collection
- Extensive collection of children's literature including fiction, picture books, poetry, folktales, myths and legends from the colonial period to the contemporary
- Australian children's books which have won major literary awards and books shortlisted for awards
- Significant holdings of first editions of Australian children's literature
- Extensive collection of journals particularly those cited in bibliographies or covered by indexes to Australian literature as well as journals published for children, particularly those printed in New South Wales
- Bibliographies of Australian children's literature including guides reviewing specific genres such as the West Australian Department of Education database about fiction for children
- Extensive collection of anthologies of Australian children's poetry and short stories
- Extensive collection of book jackets and original artwork for cover illustration and design
- Ephemera including flyers, programs related to book launches, book award posters, bookmarks and cards depicting the work of Australian illustrators
- Papers and correspondence of authors including drafts demonstrating the writing process
- Electronic resources including online databases and indexes identifying journal literature as well as access to online resources bookmarked via the Library's Internet links page under the heading: Language and literature - Australian
Some unique or significant items
- The collection includes material from the colonial period, dating from the first Australian children's book, A Mother's offering to her children (1841?).
- The original draft of Ethel Turner's novel Seven little Australians (1893).
- Original artwork for:
- Norman Lindsay's The magic pudding (1918).
- Desmond Digby's award winning Waltzing Matilda.
Mitchell Library: PXA 76
- Records of publishing companies, for example the Archives of Angus & Robertson, founded in 1886, which includes extensive correspondence between authors and editors, readers' reports and authors' drafts, and over 5,000 original artworks related to the company's publications.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS 314 - Papers of Anne Bower Ingram, prominent Australian children's literary editor, including illustrations, correspondence and manuscripts from authors and artists.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS 5152, MLMSS 5162 ADD-ON 2132, MLMSS 5162 ADD-ON 2237, PXD 458, PXD 682 - Original manuscript of The Mitchell Library: Happiness Box, written and illustrated by David Griffin and Leslie Greener while prisoners of war in Changi during World War II.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS 5428 - Papers of individual writers and illustrators, for example:
- May Gibbs.
- Pixie O'Harris.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS 5084, PIC ACC 6562 - Leslie Rees.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS5454, MLMSS 5454 ADD-ON 2105, MLSS, MLMSS 5454 ADD-ON 2068 - P.L. Travers.
- Ethel Turner.
Mitchell Library: MLMSS 667, MLMSS 2159, MLMSS 4523 - Percy Trezise and Dick Roughsey.
- Catherine Jinks.
Special collections
- Model school library, a collection of books selected in the period 1939-1948 to provide a model for Australian schools, includes about 2,000 titles arranged according to the Dewey Decimal Classification with author, title, publisher price, series and annotations.
- Sunday school library, books from St. Matthias, Paddington and Bourke Street Congregational Sunday Schools.
- Museum of Australian Childhood through the National Trust of Australia (New South Wales) collection including the Thyne Reid Trust Collection which includes paintings, original illustrations and prints relating to Australian children and childhood, and significant Australian children's books; a diverse range of ephemera about Australian childhood in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
