Term two this year, my class was studying gold and we were looking at perspective for our English unit. I selected a couple of novels and a picture book. I had read New Gold Mountain by Christopher Cheng as a novel study. I thoroughly enjoyed the diary entries of a Chinese boy of the goldfields. His story was linked to the riots at Lambing Flats in NSW during the gold rush era. Unfortunately time in the term was getting away from me, and I ended up switching text and reading the class, Seams of Gold also by Christopher Cheng. The Making Tracks series by the National Museum of Australia is an exciting series. Each book in the series is linked to a piece in the museum's collection. Seams of Gold is linked to a sewing basket. Whilst New Gold Mountain is aimed at upper primary, Seams of Gold is much more suitable for your reluctant upper primary children or middle primary classes. The class thoroughly enjoyed this story and understood a bit more what life was like for the Chinese immigrants to the Australian gold fields.
We then read Rachel Tomkin's To the Goldfields. It is a picture book with a gold perspective from the point of view of the British settlers. The children learnt a lot about the way of life in this period from reading these stories.
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