Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Kate Forsyth & Belinda Murrell, NLA Publishing, $34.95.
Being born into a family of storytellers and book lovers reaps literary rewards. As Australia’s first children’s author Charlotte de Waring Atkinson said, “for that is the use of all learning: to make us wiser and better”.
Searching for Charlotte is an engrossing read. The authors were inspired by the captivating life of their great-great-great-great grandmother, who wrote the first children’s book published in Australia in 1841. Charlotte was a child prodigy who could read by the age of two.
Writing is in their blood as well, having grown up on stories about Charlotte’s life of love, grief and violence — about her struggle to assert an independent spirit. A bestselling author, she was an early Australian artist and a pioneer in the fight for women’s legal rights, waging a bitter court battle for the right to raise her own children.
Long-listed for the 2021 Indie Book Awards: Non-Fiction, in Searching for Charlotte sisters Forsyth and Murrell tell Charlotte’s story along with that of their own journey to discover her. They embark on a voyage of discovery that investigates family history, writing, motherhood, what changes and what stays the same.
In an intriguing account, they react to ‘Charlotte’s actions: wondering what could have motivated certain choices; admiring the strength of spirit that pushed Charlotte through turmoil in the Australian colonies; and reviling attitudes that were common to the mid-1800s but are abhorrent in the twentieth century’.
Confronting at times, this is a narrative that reveals adventure, tragedy and triumph, country and culture, folklore and family.
The National Library of Australia has produced the book using Charlotte’s own paintings and sketches. It’s an uplifting journey that transforms everything they thought they knew about their family.
