In her latest book in the series Fair Dinkum Histories, A Nation of Swaggies and Diggers (Scholastic, $14.99 pb, 154 pp), Jackie French demonstrates that history can be relevant and interesting. She examines the resources and agricultural boom of the 1880s and its social implications, and then moves on to Federation and World War I. Peter Sheehan’s cartoons ably support French’s entertaining and informative text. His visual puns and jokes are clearly aimed at the intended audience (upper primary and lower secondary). Presented in the format of a novel, this book caters to the reader who is interested in history as a story about real people, rather than as a collection of unrelated facts. French is a great storyteller who humanises the past and makes it relevant by including information about how people lived their daily lives. However, she does not baulk at dealing with big issues such as racism and sexism, and explains them in their historical context. French’s colloquial, chummy style and Sheehan’s insightful wit make for an entertaining read that, at the same time, imparts a wagonload of historical information.

In Heroes of Tobruk (Scholastic, $16.99 pb, 209 pp), David Mulligan retells the story of the siege of Tobruk through the eyes of two fictional characters, Peter Fullerton and Tony Cantonelli, who enlist in the army at the age of sixteen. Based partly on facts, partly on fiction and partly on historical anecdotes, this is the story of every young soldier who, for a variety of reasons – from a misplaced sense of adventure to simply being unemployed – joined up and found himself in the hell that was World War II. Mulligan pulls no punches in this discerning tale, which interweaves social and military history. The authorial voice is occasionally too obvious in the conversations between the protagonists and those they meet, but Mulligan has an engaging writing style and the ability to tell the story without it lapsing into Boys Own Adventure territory.

There are elements of ‘boys own adventures’, however, in Kevin Patrick and Douglas Holgate’s Airborne Australia (Random House, $14.95 pb, 112 pp). This is a reader-friendly introduction to aeronautics, from boomerangs to fighter jets. Written and illustrated by two aviation aficionados, it includes information about how planes fly, different sorts of planes and significant figures in Australia’s aviation history. The predominantly black-and-white book also features a full-colour comic-strip insert titled ‘Target: Darwin’. Airborne Australia is designed for young flying enthusiasts to dip into. Its novel-sized format and copious illustrations make it accessible for primary-age children.

Simon Eliot’s Everything You Need to Know from Your Backyard to the Galaxies (Allen & Unwin, $14.95 pb, 182 pp) also examines the human need to fly like a bird, but there is no way this jam-packed book stops there. It is brimming with all sorts of fascinating and unusual information. Topics covered include everything from space to the human body, all thrown together in a cornucopia of silly, interesting and sometimes gross tall tales and true. This is a great book for inquisitive schoolchildren.

In the stunning picture book, Pharaoh: Death and Life of a God (Omnibus, $29.99 hb, 50 pp), David Kennett offers a visually splendid salute to Egyptian culture and society. His acrylic paintings are breath-taking in their detail and have a wonderful theatricality. He has painstakingly reconstructed the life of Ramesses II, and the world he presents is complex, exotic and beautiful. The text is written in the present tense, in keeping with Kennett’s visual representation of a life being lived, and it is very matter-of-fact, with none of the lyricism of his illustrations, but this provides necessary balance. Pharaoh is an informative, sumptuously produced glimpse into another culture, its mindset, its artistic endeavours, its social mores, and its religious and political life.

It is a brave move for a publisher to produce a facsimile edition of a history book that was first published in 1952. The Australia Book (Black Dog Books, $29.99 hb, 56 pp), by Eve Pownall and Margaret Senior, provides a snapshot of how people during the 1950s viewed themselves, the Australia they lived in and the past that had shaped their world. It was a deserving winner of the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award in 1952, and it remains remarkably fresh and highly readable fifty-six years later, despite its obviously patriarchal and Anglo-Saxon world view. Pownall’s text has strong story-telling cadences: this is real history, with the emphasis on the people, their endeavours, their motives, and their achievements. She makes the reader feel part of this story, while inevitably reflecting the views of her era. Her meticulous research and ability to communicate effectively with children is evident on every page; it is no wonder that her name is celebrated today in the CBC’s Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. Margaret Senior’s small, colour images fill the pages in a profusion of vignettes of daily life and significant events in the history of Australia. Her depictions are full of vitality as they interweave with and interpret the text. The Australia Book will give children an insight into how people thought fifty years ago, and it will also make them feel part of an ongoing story about the land they live in. It is up to them to write the next chapters.

John Long also encourages children to think about the past, the present and the future in The Big Picture Book of Environments (Allen & Unwin, $32.95 hb, 48 pp). Long examines the complexity of climate and its ongoing effects on the earth’s environment. The production values in this thoughtfully produced book are excellent. In keeping with its theme, the book is carbon neutral and printed on ‘100% ancient-forest friendly paper’. Long writes elegantly and eruditely, but his concise text is also highly accessible to its intended audience of primary schoolchildren. He documents the role that climate has played in the evolution of our planet, and then examines the effects of present climate changes on a range of environments. Fact boxes, graphs, diagrams and maps aid understanding, and stunning photographs illustrate every page, although unfortunately they are not captioned. Finally, Long presents the reader with two alternatives: what the planet will be like in 2080 if we do nothing about climate change, and what it will be like if we act now. He ends on a positive note, listing the things that children can do at a micro-level to make a difference.