Australian Aboriginal Readers to Help Teach Australian Idioms - A Review of The Badudu Stories

There are several books in this Badudu Stories series by May L O'Brien, published by Fremantle Press. The series includes:

1. What do You Say?
2. Smartie Pants
3. Too Big for Your Boots
4. Which Jack?

There is also a free set of teaching ideas available from the publisher Fremantle Press which help teachers and others to put the books in context and to give ideas about how to use them to assist children with reading and language difficulties and to build literacy skills in young readers.

The books are set in Australia, and focus on Australian Aboriginal children in remote settings. Each book includes a different example of an Australian idiom, or a misunderstanding which has its foundation in the literal versus non literal use of spoken language.

A good example of this type of misunderstanding happens in the story Too Big for Your Boots, where Bindabinda, a young Australian Aboriginal girl in a primary school classroom, is told by her teacher "..you're too big for your boots." Of course, the intended meaning of this idiom is to tell Brindabinda that she is being too clever for her own good and that she needs to stop showing off in class. However, the child in the story does not understand this idiom. She takes her teacher literally, and believes that he means her feet will stop growing completely and she will spend the rest of her life having small feet and a bigger body. Of course her school friends are no help and simply reinforce her misunderstanding with outrageous predictions that, "You're going to look awful with small feet and a big body."

It is only through the kindness and patience of the community's nurse at the local hospital that Bindabinda is eventually put straight on her understanding of the term.

Each book contains detailed and well researched information about Australian Aboriginal children and their learning and teaching in remote Aboriginal communities in Australia. The soft, appealing illustrations give a good insight into outback Australia, and the life of the Australian Aboriginal children who live there. There is repeated use of Australian Aboriginal language in the stories which allows children from non Aboriginal backgrounds to learn some of the spoken language of the story. For example, Which Jack? concludes with the statement "Yuwa mularrba" (It sure is), and a picture of two young boys arm in arm in a sign of friendship.

Each book also has a glossary of words in the back cover, which shows the Australian Aboriginal words used in the story as well as phonetic information and a definition.

These books would be suited to primary or early secondary students who were struggling readers, were interested in learning about Australian Aboriginal children, culture or language, or who were themselves having difficulties with understanding idioms in spoken or written language.