Dot and the Kangaroo

Gah, I don't know what to do. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't with this one. Ethel Pedley's work has not survived the last 30 years with as much affection as her fellow children's writer, Ethel Turner (of Seven Little Australians). Her book is not terribly PC, what with its pick-and-choose conservation messages (love kangaroos! but keep farming animals for slaughter who don't really suit the landscape!), superficial Aboriginal stereotypes, and somewhat old-fashioned approach to children's morality that would have been perfectly at home in the 1890s but less so now. However, from a historian's perspective, this was a hugely influential work for a few generations of children, and a book that asked for children to understand show more Australia on its terms, not those of the British. Of course, I appreciate that Pedley is subconsciously still pushing a pro-British angle, but I'd like to think a child can still enjoy the tale of young Dot. show less

The defining example of that bizarre old-timey trope in which nature-loving misanthropy finds its apex in racism. A mostly nice kiddie book that takes hideous swings at the Aboriginal community because colonialism means we can't have nice things.