Felicity Banks

Welcome to Australia

July 13, 2022 at 8:29 pm (Uncategorized)

This is the finished version of “Welcome to Australia”, a book I started writing way back in 2020. It is designed to be read by immigrant and refugee children with their parents/guardians. 

Eventually there will be versions in Dari Persian, Mandarin, Indonesian/Malay (Bahasa), Arabic, and Spanish.

Update January 2023: The Indonesian translation is finished, checked, and being formatted. The Dari Persian version is finished but hasn’t had its final translator check yet. The Mandarin and Spanish versions are with volunteer translators.

Update 6 February 2023: The English and Indonesian/Malay versions are going to the printer TODAY. The Spanish, Mandarin, and Dari Persian versions are all finished and awaiting formatting. The Arabic is… not started yet. But we’ll get there eventually!

Update 28 March 2023: The launch last month went really well, and when I realised there was a Columbian woman with beautiful daughters at the launch I asked her if I could add her girls to the book. She said yes (see p. 9). Then I decided the book needed a bushland photo on the back cover, a desert landscape somewhere, and some African representation (not to mention a simpler map). My apologies to Jason Tankard at Design Print Canberra for making him go over the same book dozens of times. And now we need to make all the changes to all the versions. . .

See the Indonesian/Malay version in full here!

See the Dari Persian version in full here.

Comment here, buy a copy in my store, or email FBanksBooks@gmail.com to get your copy or to donate a copy to a school, refugee, or refugee-supporting organisation.

YES there will be cheap ebooks of all of the versions, as well as combined English/non-English versions.

I am perfectly happy for these images to be shared, especially in schools and among immigrants and refugees and the organisations that help them. My only rule is that you don’t get paid for our work.

A lot of the illustrators/models donated their images (and there are a LOT of photos of my kids) but I made a point of paying refugees and Aboriginal people (both models and sensitivity readers).