Australian books on now our shelves

Back here I wrote about the lack of Australian books in the CAJ library. As a result of that post we had friends in Australia sent us some Aussie books. Because the books arrived with our friends in June along with a whole bunch of other gifts, they were overlooked for quite a while. But after we finished our latest Famous Five book I decided that these short biographies of famous Aussies would be great reading fodder. Our after-tea-reading time (wrote about it here) has been a good forum for introducing books that the boys aren't (initially) interested in reading on their own.

And it's been an enjoyable journey. David and I knew many of the sports and music stars, but the writers, medical workers and scientists etc. were less known to us. Did you know, for example, that an Australian (Florey) had a large part to play in the development of penicillin?

I also discovered they'd given us this book that my 12 y.o. devoured. I enjoyed most of it too. Learnt some new things Andre used a lot of old history I'm sure I learnt at school.

For example, I learnt (or re-learnt?) that America's war of independence had a part to play in Australia's first white settlement in 1788.

But back to how this all started, the overly American library fodder at CAJ. I'm glad to say that now we're able to give the boys a little more balance. And eventually these books might even make their way into the CAJ library, you never know. I do know that when we next visit Australia we'll be looking for some more of these high quality type of books to add to our own library. Thanks Melissa and Rob for your contribution to our boys' education!