Looking for an Aboriginal children's book to connect with what you're already teaching?
One of the easiest ways to embed Aboriginal perspectives more consistently is to stop treating them as a separate topic.
Instead, look at the learning already happening in your classroom and ask:
“Whose perspectives could we include here?”
Here are some themes where Aboriginal children's books can provide a meaningful starting point.
Country and Place
Books exploring Country can support conversations about belonging, place, responsibility and relationships with the natural world.
Extend the learning by investigating whose Country your school or early learning service is located on and exploring your local environment.
Browse Aboriginal Children’s Books.
Australian Animals
Learning about Australian animals provides opportunities to explore Aboriginal stories, knowledge and relationships with Country.
Books can be paired with games and hands-on learning experiences to extend children's investigation.
Bush Foods
Children are often fascinated by food.
Books featuring bush foods and native plants can lead into conversations about how Aboriginal peoples have cared for, harvested and used plants over generations.
Extend the learning using our Bush Foods Snap Game, a bush food garden or opportunities to learn from Aboriginal people with appropriate local knowledge.
You might also like our blog Exploring Bush Tucker in the Classroom.
Family and Kinship
Stories about families can help children recognise that families can look different and that relationships, identity and belonging are important.
Aboriginal-authored books can provide authentic perspectives on family and community without positioning Aboriginal culture as something from the past.
Caring for Country
Sustainability is already part of learning in many Australian classrooms.
Aboriginal books can help broaden those conversations by introducing children to longstanding relationships between Aboriginal peoples and Country.
Use these stories as a starting point rather than presenting Aboriginal ecological knowledge as a collection of simple environmental “tips”.
You can also explore our guide to Starting a Bush Food Garden at Your School or Early Learning Centre.
Feelings and Wellbeing
Aboriginal representation can also be incorporated into everyday conversations about emotions, friendships and wellbeing.
Not every resource needs to explicitly teach culture.
Seeing Aboriginal children and families represented in ordinary childhood experiences is important too.
For older children and students, our Wellbeing Yarn Cards provide another way to explore emotions, strengths, coping, problem solving and wellbeing through discussion.
Literacy and Storytelling
Storytelling provides opportunities for children to listen, imagine, communicate and make meaning.
Books can be extended through drawing, dramatic play, oral storytelling and yarning.
Our Yarning Cards provide prompts for conversation, storytelling and sharing ideas.
Be mindful, however, that traditional stories and cultural knowledge can have particular ownership and permissions. Use published materials as intended and don't encourage children to recreate sacred or culturally restricted stories or designs.
Significant Dates
Books can support learning around:
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National Reconciliation Week
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Mabo Day
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NAIDOC Week
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National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day
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Indigenous Literacy Day
But don't let these become the only times Aboriginal books appear.
Keep them on the shelf after the event has finished.
Build a library rather than choosing one book
There isn't one book that can represent Aboriginal Australia.
Build a collection featuring different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors, illustrators, communities, experiences and themes.
Over time, children begin to see Aboriginal perspectives as a natural part of their learning about Australia — rather than something added for a particular week.
Riley Callie Resources stocks a growing range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children's books for early childhood and primary classrooms, alongside educational resources designed to help educators extend that learning through play and discussion.
Explore Aboriginal Picture Books & First Nations Children’s Books →