Booklist gems #1

A couple of great options for your future booklists from the 2024 CBCA Book of the Year longlists.

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Now, because I know it’s time to think about your 2025 booklists, here are some suggestions from the recent CBCA Book of the Year Awards:

I am the Mau & other stories by Chemutai Glasheen

Short stories can work wonderfully in classrooms, but it’s not always easy to find the right collection. I get this request a lot, so I’ll have to do a future newsletter with some more ideas! But for now, I’d highly recommend I am the Mau & other stories if you’re looking for a contemporary, enagaging, and myriad collection for Year 9-10 students.

I think I am the Mau could work as a more young adult alternative to something like Foreign Soil (although I am a huge fan of this in senior school!) and a much better option for Year 9-10 than some of the other outdated and very adult short story collections I tend to see on booklists. As much as I adore her, I don’t think Alice Munro is quite right for your typical Aussie teenager, and I don’t think it’s going to get many kids thrilled about doing their homework.

I am the Mau, on the other hand, just might.

This enticing collection of contemporary fiction is a celebration of our ubuntu: the invisible ties that bind us all together.

From ancient forest guardians to modern cultural warriors, from grappling with age-old traditions to championing hair identity, these evocative stories explore the duality of Kenyan life and how to find a way between two cultures, both of which are yours.

Chemutai Glasheen’s unforgettable characters are drawn from her early life in Africa with all its richness, diversity and complexity.

Some of the key elements of this text include:

• Themes of connection to place, identity, tradition, war, and power

• Rich language and strong, varied voices throughout

• Multiple genres and time periods

• East African settings

• Deep explorations of human rights and gender