Rabbit-Proof Fence

Best read in conjunction with the film, this memoir fills in details of the girls' trek that are not as explicit in the screen version. What the film provides is both a dynamism lacking in the book, and a broader context for why the Australian government would separate biracial children from their families. I was particularly fascinated by the expenditures made to recover three girls; no comparable manhunt would be mounted in our era for non-criminal escapees.

It would be interesting to compare the rationales for the general removal of native children to boarding schools in different countries, particularly the covert reasoning. The film does a better job of identifying the more pernicious aims of the program. ( )

The story -- three aboriginal girls who escape from a government settlement and make their way home -- is interesting and exciting. Sadly, the writing is poor; the grammar is iffy and Pilkington isn't very good at crafting the story or at working background details into the main narrative. ( )

RGG: Amazing story of three Australian black aboriginal children's journey on-foot through the Outback after being put in a assimilation settlement.

This is the true story of three bi-racial girls who were taken from their families by the Australian government in 1930 and relocated to an Aboriginal "settlement" half a continent away, and of their daring escape and return to their families.

This was not a great book, but it was interesting enough. ( )

This is a true and sad story of times past, about a rather shameful era in Australian history. Of course similar stories has been told from all parts over the world were the white man has come to make his demands. This rather short story gives the reader some background, some knowledge of the aboriginal way of living and the story of the three sisters. It was interesting to read it but it never got me hooked. I can understand those writing that they liked the movie better because the book is frankly a bit boring. I felt that the book is nothing more than the retelling of this event, which is a good thing because it needed to be told, but it does´t have the qualities of a good novel. ( )