Conversations about the importance of representation in stories seem to be occurring more and more as people are actively seeking out Australian stories which represent the Australia of today. The implications of this are far-reaching. In the Literature Symposiums curated by Professor Emerita Robyn Ewing AM and Jo Padgham at the Foundation for Learning and Literacy, Brownwyn Bancroft highlighted the incredible importance of representation in stories for Australian society at large: 

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Representation in books for young people may be important, but will it actually make them read more? Studies from outside Australia have shown the power of representation in literature. Flowers and Berry (2019) propose that the reason behind growing aliteracy rates in Black girls in the US is a lack of access to quality materials that are culturally relevant, and suggest a series of measures to empower them through both reading and writing. There are also many examples of ‘identity-affirming’ literacy spaces and programs that have an enormous impact upon the literacy of students, as well as encourage them to read for pleasure (Jones, 2009).

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Consequently, we must consider if young people are being exposed to a wide array of texts from diverse Australian voices. Dr Alexander Bacalja (2020) from the University of Melbourne shared the findings of her research with Dr Lauren Bliss in an article for the publication, Pursuit. They found that over a ten-year period up until 2019, less than two per cent of texts from the VCE curriculum were by Indigenous writers. Both their work, and the work of other researchers has shown that featured Australian texts are usually colonialist in nature, and fail to reflect the growing diversity of Australian society and classrooms. Despite this, Bacalja, like Ross Johnston (2017), warns against the complete removal of the texts which ‘silence’ other voices, suggesting that “removing these works from classrooms makes it even harder for our students to critique the stories they tell about Australia’s past”.

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In her presentation as a part of the 2022 Literature Symposium run by the Foundation for Learning and Literacy, Anne Berkey from Australia Reads acknowledged that “there's work to do about ensuring that we're actually reflecting the Australian population, culture, social background, and the the reading culture doesn't always do that” (Foundation for Learning and Literacy, 2022a). Author Will Kostakis (The Sidekicks, 2016; Monuments, 2019) agrees that we are not there yet “when it comes to embracing diversity in literature - be it the author’s identity and experiences, or those of the characters on the page - we are trending in the right direction. I say trending, when I really wish we were striding, leaping or… already there” (Daley, 2019). Bronwyn Bancroft also acknowledges the progress that has been made, that “we are richer for the amount of books that are now coming to us and I've noticed that in the last couple of years that particularly Magabala books are doing an excellent job of bringing forward young emerging and divergent voices, and I think we are richer for it” (Foundation for Learning and Literacy, 2022). Booth and Narayan (2021) paint a more scathing picture in their investigation into diverse representations within Australian Young Adult fiction, warning that “unless the under-representation of #OwnVoices books is addressed by Australian publishers, opportunities for progress will remain limited, and Australian YA fiction will not truly reflect its audience” (p. 30). This issue was highlighted in a professional development session run by the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) entitled Why Choosing Diverse Books Isn’t Enough: It’s All About The Right Representation by Australian author Kate Foster. She compiled a list of Young Adult and Children's authors who are themselves neurodivergent, and who write neurodivergent characters. She shared that, apart from herself, she could only find three other Australian authors, yet was able to find many authors from overseas. Although seemingly making many strides down the right path, the publishing industry in Australia perhaps has a little more walking to do to ensure diverse authors are given the opportunity to represent neurodivergent experiences.

At the 2022 Celebrate Reading Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, iconic Australian children’s author Jackie French described how she interrogates Principals by asking them, “How much are you spending on the oval and sporting equipment, and how much are you spending on literacy?”. In her lamentation of decreasing reading rates, she went on to speak out against the budget cuts that libraries face and the essential nature of teacher librarians and literacy specialists in schools. In many schools it is the librarian who will assist teachers to access new, diverse and Australian titles. By cutting their resourcing, or cutting them out all together, schools risk losing an essential diversity access point for teachers and students. 

While the aliteracy problem is complex, with many facets and possible approaches, it can be argued that one possible approach is the exposure of young people to quality Australian literature that represents the Australia that they know, and one that they aspire for.