Children’s Book Week review – M is for Mutiny! History by Alphabet by John Dickson and Bern Emmerichs

This book is shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, which is the category for children’s non-fiction books, and was also included in the The Age’s list of brilliant kids books from 2017.

Cover Image for M is for mutiny!
This book is an introduction to Australian history with each letter of the alphabet relating to a different event or person. Interesting pieces of trivia encourage readers to ask questions and learn more about times past and the people who lived then.

The book does not shy away from the sadder parts of our history, beginning with ‘A is for acknowledgement to country’ and covering ‘L is for land rights’ and ‘R is for reconciliation’, in addition to other significant events regarding the effects of European occupation on Aboriginal Australians. There are teachers’ notes available for anyone who wants to delve further into this book, which is recommended for ages 7+

My nine year old also enjoyed this book: “This book has good illustrations. My favourite picture is E for Endeavour. It is good for all ages and teaches history very well. We are studying Captain Cook at school but I learnt something new about him from this book”.

You can reserve this book from Cockburn Libraries for an interesting, educational read!