Ancestry honored by the Children’s Book Council of Australia

The Australian War Memorial is proud to be awarded as an Honour book in the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books at the 2016 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year Awards in Sydney. The children’s book, Ancestry, is the third book in the Century of Service series which was developed in recognition of the service and sacrifice of those who have served Australia over the past century. The publication was produced collaboratively between the Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ancestry: stories of multicultural Anzacs, was written by Robyn Siers and Carlie Walker from the Memorial’s Education team, designed by Brett Hatherly of Fivefold Creative, and published by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2015.
The book tells the stories of individuals and families from a range of cultural backgrounds who served with Australian units during the First World War. “The image-rich publication draws on the Australian War Memorial’s diverse collection, including private records, photographs, artwork, and objects and combines stories with fact boxes, research questions and activities, a timeline, and map,” co-author Carlie Walker said. “Ancestry is a learning resource for students in upper primary to lower secondary levels, designed both for classroom use and individual reading.” In the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial there are 15 stained-glass windows, each displaying a word which describes a quality displayed by Australians during wartime. Along with Ancestry, each book in the Century of Service series tells personal stories of service and sacrifice relating to one of these qualities. So far the series has published Devotion: stories of Australia’s wartime nurses (published 2013), Audacity: stories of heroic Australians in wartime (published 2014), and Resource: stories of Australian innovation in wartime (published 2016). “Ancestry features a variety of personal and family stories. One of these is about the Christensen family from Northern Germany,” Ms Walker said. “All four of the Christensen siblings served in the First World War. One never returned home. Another tells the story of Aboriginal serviceman Frank Fisher, Cathy Freeman’s great-grandfather, who served as a light horseman despite a defence policy that excluded Aboriginal Australians from wartime service.”