About the book

With her mum on the warpath, it's a race against time for Yirra to find a dog trainer for naughty Demon.

Yirra's mum's sick of vacuuming up fur balls, the neighbours are fed up with having their undies nicked from the clothesline, and her step-dad just wants his slippers back.

If Yirra doesn't find a dog-trainer soon, she'll have to give her beloved Demon to a new family ? one who likes dogs who run and dig a lot!

Bursting with energy and madcap fun, Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon gives young readers a contemporary view of urban Indigenous life in Sydney.

Yirra is a special book. It came about through the Indigenous Arts Reference Group of the NSW Ministry for the Arts, and the City of Sydney, who awarded Anita the 2004 Indigenous Arts Fellowship so she could work on this project.

Anita very much wanted to contribute to the community she lived close to all her life, having grown up in Matraville. Over a period of fifteen months, Anita worked with the students of La Perouse Public School, who are nearly all Indigenous, to write Yirra. From creative writing workshops to brainstorming sessions, the children used experiences from their own lifestyle at La Perouse for ideas. Royalties from the book will be split 50:50 between Anita and the school, and revenue generated will go towards writing and reading projects for La Perouse Public School.

Adam Hill began drawing at eight years of age. Adam earned extra food in primary school by drawing other students' title pages. Later, Adam studied drawing at TAFE and then university. Today, Adam draws daily as a job.

Review: '... graced with a warm, easygoing humour as it paints a human-scale portrait of a minority often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.' (Rosemary Neill in Weekend Australian Review magazine, 30 June 2007.)

On-line Review: Goldcreek

RRP: $14.95

Available from:

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