Bathurst Community Safety Campaigns

16 Days of Activism Reading List

Read more about gender-based violence using the Bathurst Library’s 16 Days of Activism Reading List:

Picture Books

1. No difference between us: teaching children about gender equality, respectful relationships, feelings, choice, self-esteem, empathy, tolerance, and acceptance.

   Author: Jayneen Sanders.  Illustrated by Amanada Gulliver

   Jess and Ben are twins. Jess is a girl and Ben is a boy but in all the BIG ways, there is NO difference between them!
   
   Explore with the children in your care the important issues of gender equality and respectful relationships. Combining cheerful illustrations and a simple but effective narrative, this book will help children to understand that, fundamentally, there is no difference between us.

    

2. Respect

    

   Author: Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson.  Illustrated by Lisa Kennedy

    

   A tender, thoughtful story reminding us to respect others and respect ourselves. Part of the Our Place series which welcomes children to culture.

    

3. Rosie Revere, engineer

   Author: Andrea Beaty.  Illustrated by David Robers

   Rosie Revere dreams of becoming a great engineer. Where some people see rubbish, Rosie sees inspiration. Alone in her room at night, shy Rosie constructs great inventions from odds and ends. Hot dog dispensers, helium pants, python-repelling cheese hats: Rosie's gizmos would astound--if she ever let anyone see them. Afraid of failure, she hides them away under her bed. Until a fateful visit from her great-great-aunt Rose (aka Rosie the Riveter!), who shows her that the first flop isn't something to fear--it's something to celebrate. And you can only truly fail if you quit.

4. Some boys

   Author:  Nelly Thomas.  Illustrated by Sarah Dunk

   Your boy might like rough, tough, gentle or pretty stuff. He might wear shirts, skirts, hats or plaits. He might get sad sometimes, and mad sometimes. He might feel shy sometimes and want to fly sometimes! Some Boys says it's all good - all boys can be whoever they want. 

    

5. Some girls

   Author: Nelly Thomas.  Illustrated by Sarah Dunk

   "Some Girls" is a story about how everyone is different and special in their own way. It's about knowing that you can do, and be, anything you want. Whether your girl is rough, tough, gentle or pretty, this book is for her. She might have short hair, long hair, big hair or strong hair. "Some Girls" says all girls can look however they want! "Some Girls" encourages all girls to be free of stereotypes and other kids and adults to allow them to be.

    

   Junior Non-Fiction

6. Stories for boys who dare to be different: true tales of amazing boys who changed the world without killing dragons. 

   Author: Ben Brooks.  Illustrated by Quinton Winter

   A beautiful and transporting book packed with stories of adventure and wonderment, it will appeal to those who need the courage to reject peer pressure and go against the grain. It is the must-have book for all those boys who worry about stuff and all those parents who worry about their boys who worry about stuff. It will educate and entertain, while also encourage and inspire.

    

7. What is gender?  How does it define us? And other big questions.

   Author: Juno Dawson

   What's the difference between sex and gender? What does it mean to be defined by your gender? Are there only two genders? This informative book helps kids to explore these questions and many more. It explains how your gender can have an impact on your life, what it means to choose your own gender identity and the importance of gender equality. 

    

   Junior Fiction

8. The restless girls

   Author: Jessie Burton.  Illustrated by Angela Barrett

   For her twelve daughters, Queen Laurelia's death in a motor car accident is a disaster beyond losing a mother. Their father, King Alberto, cannot bear the idea of the princesses ever being in danger and decides his daughters must be kept safe at all costs. Those costs include their lessons, their possessions and, most importantly, their freedom.
   
   But the eldest, Princess Frida, will not bend to his will without a fight and she still has one possession her father can't take: the power of her imagination. And so, with little but wits and ingenuity to rely on, Frida and her sisters begin their fight to be allowed to live.

    

   Teen

9. Moxie

    

   Author: Jennifer Mathieu

   Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

    

10. Rebel of the sands

     

    Author: Alywn Hamilton

     

    Dustwalk is Amani's home. The desert sand is in her bones. But she wants to escape. More than a want. A need.
    
    Then a foreigner with no name turns up to save her life, and with him the chance to run. But to where? The desert plains are full of danger. Sand and blood are swirling, and the Sultan's enemies are on the rise.

     

    Adult Non Fiction

11. Boys will be boys

    Author: Clementine Ford

    All boys start out innocent and tender, but by the time they are adolescents many of them will subscribe to a view of masculinity that is openly contemptuous of women and girls. Our world conditions boys into entitlement, privilege and power at the expense not just of girls' humanity but also of their own.
    
    Ford demolishes the age-old assumption that superiority and aggression are natural realms for boys, and demonstrates how toxic masculinity creates a disturbingly limited and potentially dangerous idea of what it is to be a man. Crucially, Boys Will Be Boys reveals how the patriarchy we live in is as harmful to boys and men as it is to women and girls, and asks what we have to do to reverse that damage. The world needs to change and this book shows the way.

     

12. Fight like a girl

    Author: Clementine Ford

    Online sensation, fearless feminist heroine and scourge of trolls and misogynists everywhere, Clementine Ford is a beacon of hope and inspiration to thousands of Australian women and girls. Her incendiary debut Fight Like A Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be, and exposes just how unequal the world continues to be for women. Crucially, it is a call to arms for all women to rediscover the fury that has been suppressed by a society that still considers feminism a threat.

     

13. Fixed it: violence and the representation of women in the media

     

    Author: Jane Gilmore

     

    On average, at least one woman is murdered by a current or former partner every week in Australia. Far too many Australian women have experienced physical or sexual violence. Only rarely do these women capture the attention of the media and the public. What can we do to stem the tide of violence and tragedy?
    
    Finally, we are starting to talk about this epidemic of gendered violence, but too often we are doing so in a way that can be clumsy and harmful. Victim blaming, passive voice and over-identification with abusers continue to be hallmarks of reporting on this issue. And, with newsrooms drastically cutting staff and resources, and new business models driven by rapid churn and the 24 hour news cycle journalists and editors often don't have the time or resources bring new ways of thinking into their newsrooms.
    
    Fixed It demonstrates the myths that we're unconsciously sold about violence against women, and undercuts them in a clear and compelling way. This is a bold, powerful look at the stories we are told - and the stories we tell ourselves - about gender and power, and a call to action for all of us to think harder and do better.

     

14. Highway of tears: a true story of racism, indifference, and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

    Author: Jessical McDiarmid

    For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.
    
    Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected. McDiarmid interviews those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—and provides an intimate firsthand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to four thousand—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.
    
    Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the victims and a testament to their families’ and communities’ unwavering determination to find it.

     

15. On rape

    Author: Germaine Greer

    It’s time to rethink rape. Centuries of different approaches to rape—as inflicted by men on women—have got us nowhere.
    
    Rape statistics remain intractable: one woman in five will experience sexual violence. Very few rapes find their way into court. The crucial issue is consent, thought by some to be easy to establish and by others impossible. Sexual assault does not diminish; relations between the sexes do not improve; litigation balloons.
    
    In On Rape Germaine Greer argues there has to be a better way.

     

16. See what you made me do: power, control and domestic abuse

Author: Jess Hill

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it?

Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today.

Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes.