Year: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Rodney McRae

McRae’s illustrations interpret Aesop’s fables through a range of international art forms and visual references. He is inspired by folk art and design, as well as some of the earliest known European artworks, such as the Lascaux cave paintings, Australian Indigenous, Mayan and Aztec art, Indian art, and contemporary Japanese woodblocks which enhance the reader’s interpretations of the fables. McRae also uses collage from torn paper, scraperboard, charcoal and watercolours. (...)

literary

YEAR: 1990

COUNTRY: Australia

TAGS: Aesop Aesop’s Fables Fable Jupiter Mercury Venus

May O'Brien, Susan Wyatt

The Legend of the Seven Sisters: A Traditional Aboriginal Story from Western Australia

In her story of the Seven Sisters legend, May O’Brien dedicates this traditional Aboriginal story to the descendants of the Wongutha people who came to live at Mount Margaret Mission in Western Australia. Beginning with “Long, Long ago when only Aboriginal people lived in Australia” there were “small men…Yayarrs” who walked all over the country. These small men would leave Earth and travel up and down the Milky Way, coming back to Earth and landing on a speci(...)

nonclassical

YEAR: 1990

COUNTRY: Australia

TAGS: Creation Myths Indigenous Myths Pleiades

Dennis Nolan, Jane Hyatt Yolen

Wings

Wings can be classified as a picture book, in that Yolen’s written story is accompanied by Nolan’s full page watercolour paintings. But the sophistication of both textual and visual messages makes the work suitable for a mature readership. It tells the story of the craftsman Daedalus. It opens with him living as a celebrated inventor in Athens, before his role in the death of his nephew Talos forces him to go into exile. Making his way to Crete, he is welcomed by the unscrupulous Kin(...)

literary

YEAR: 1990

COUNTRY: United States of America

TAGS: Ariadne Athens Crete Daedalus Gods Icarus Labyrinth Maze Minos Minotaur Theseus