I feel immense joy in knowing this book has remained in the Australian psyche – for all who live here and call this country home

• Vote for the best Australian children’s picture book

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

It’s with good reason that The Rainbow Serpent by Dick Roughsey has continued to be an Australian children’s classic for 50 years.

This beloved work, which was first published in 1975 and is competing in Guardian Australia’s reader poll of the best Australian children’s picture books of all time, tells the powerful creation story of the Rainbow Serpent from the perspective of Roughsey (1920-85), a senior Lardil man from Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria and a gifted author and artist, whose traditional name was Goobalathaldin, meaning “rough seas”.

Now the remaining people have to look after all the animals, all the living things which were men and women in the beginning but who were too afraid of old Goorialla to remain as people. The shooting star racing across the sky at night is the eye of Goorialla – watching everyone.