Milbi

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Originally this book was published in 1979 (in English) by an academic press, and presented stories from the Guugu Yimithirr peoples whose country centres around the Endeavour River in far north Queensland. The narratives depict time before time when all living creatures were human but changed as time passed into animals, birds, spirits or heavenly bodies. Tulo was born around 1918 and lived on his traditional country as a child, before living on a Lutheran mission at Cape Bedford and Hopevale until his death in 1989. He gathered the tales from many of his people; some were told to entertain, some to educate and warn, and he illustrated them in a style based on traditional bark paintings. One of the reasons this book was reissued is to share the paintings more widely; and another is to restore the stories in print, both in English and in Tulo's own Guugu Yimithirr language. Extensive notes at the back of the book explain many aspects of the stories, language and life of Tulo, and this book deserves to be in every school library for that reason alone, apart from the warm and immediate stories themselves.  Lindy