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Works by Edwin Barnard

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NLA Publishing produces beautiful ‘coffee table’ illustrated books on all sorts of subjects, but Spinning Tops and Gumdrops is one that is likely to find a home in school libraries. It is as the subtitle says, a portrait of colonial childhood, 192 lavishly illustrated pages covering everything from toys and games to the vulnerability of 19th century children to an early death. Because the book is large (approximately 25cm square) a teacher could easily show a class the full page and double spread images to bring all kinds of topics vividly to life, from colonial clothing to transport to housing. Senior school students could use it for research too, because there is as much to be learned from the drawings, paintings and photos as there is from the text.
The quality of the photos is quite remarkable, considering that photography was in its infancy and that portraits involved people having to pose without moving for minutes at a time. The photos of the De Salis children, probably taken about 1890 when the family was struggling after the depression, are enchanting, and I think that more than one of these images would make a brilliant stimulus to creative writing. There’s a splendid photo of one of these children brandishing a pistol at the others who are all dressed in rather odd garb. The author’s note explains that they’re play acting with dress-ups but the swords and the pistol may well be real. Imaginative present-day children could write wonderful stories about this image! I also like a photo of a family in an open carriage, most of them looking very sour indeed: where are they going? Why are they so gloomy? (They’re not dressed for a funeral, so that’s not the reason!) There’s also a very sad collection of the Sobraon boys, one of them as young as three, posed with brief biographies which explain the pathetic backgrounds that led to them being ordered into detention on a ship called the Sobraon until they turned 18 or were apprenticed out. (You can read a little about this ship refitted as a reformatory for wayward boys and destitute children at the Museum of Sydney website, but it’s the images in this book that brings the story to life. Imagine that poor little tot being confined to a ship for 15 years!)
The blurb also suggests that family historians can get a sense of their ancestors’ childhoods through these poignant photographs and memories from the past. The author, Edwin Barnard, based the book on the reminiscences of men and women whose earliest memories were of the rip-roaring cities, sleepy outback towns and lonely selections of colonial Australia, and his sources include well-known writers like A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson but also relative unknowns such as Henry Button...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/27/spinning-tops-and-gumdrops-a-portrait-of-col...
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anzlitlovers | Feb 27, 2018 |

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5
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Rating
4.2
Reviews
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ISBNs
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