Talking Speeches: 150 years of speakers and speeches by Joan Haig and Joan Lennon, Illustrated by André Ducci

Published by Templar Books

TALKING History teaches children and young adults the impact words can have – both personally and socially – and does so with an inspiring and joyful commitment. This is a history book unlike anything one would expect in all the best ways.

The use of André Ducci’s beautiful and vibrant illustrations to tell stories of great speeches in the form of a graphic novel makes it more accessible and more exciting for children to learn from. The impression given from reading this book is that words, when used effectively, hold a great amount of power to affect change.

While this tells of the history around some of the world’s most famous and impactful speeches, it also takes the time to include points of analysis about just what makes them so captivating and how to implement these in writing. This is a book that teaches eight- to 12-year-olds about historical events, social issues still relevant today and the language techniques used by those brave enough to step up and speak out about them.

Each chapter focuses on a different event, providing context for it with a combination of images and words, fantastic colour palettes and relevant statistics for each. From this, the speaker is introduced before an extract that captures the main points and essence of their speech is given among illustrations and notes.

You can read these in any order but they are organised within the book chronologically and at the end of each chapter, page numbers are given to find speeches with similar themes for those particularly interested in exploring one idea.

This structure makes the experience of reading easy, fun and personalised.

One particularly relevant speech is “An Aboriginal Woman Asks For Justice” given by Pearl Gibbs in April 1938 as a letter in the magazine Woman Today. This speech stands out with how close the release of the book this month was to an event this week commonly known as Australia Day.

On January 26 1788, Captain Arthur Philip invaded Australia on behalf of the British Empire and for the Eora people already living there it marked a start to the oppression and brutal murder of their people, the stealing of their land and the repression of their culture.

It is also known as Survival or Invasion Day, and as an alternate approach to its celebration, the Yabun festival every year focuses not on the settlers but on the culture of the Eora.

It is important, this month especially to recognise this day and the work Gibbs did with her campaigns for Aboriginal rights and of course four of the simple but impactful words found in her speech “I am an Australian”. Gibbs’s is only one of the many incredible stories told in this book that begins from Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and ends with Severn Cullis-Suzuki and Greta Thunberg.

I would recommend this to all children.