Ethel Turner (1873–1958) came to Australia with her mother and sisters when she was 10 years old. She showed a great love of literature while at school and in her late teens launched a literary and social magazine in Sydney with her sister Lilian. Ethel kept diaries for a remarkable 62 years, recording the details of her full and eventful life. In January 1893 she recorded in her diary, ‘Night started a new story that I shall call Seven Little Australians’. Later that year, she finished the book, parcelled it up and sent it off to a publisher in Melbourne.
Since then the book has sold over 2 million copies in the English language and has been reprinted over 50 times. It has been translated into at least 11 languages, performed as a stage play, and been made into a film, a BBC television series in 1953, and a 10–episode television series for the ABC in 1973. Ethel Turner went on to write over 40 books in her lifetime, including children’s stories, short stories and poems, many of which appeared in the Town and Country journal and in the Sun Herald newspaper.
Seven Little Australians has been read and loved by children all over the world, and it has been continuously in print for over 100 years. Ethel Turner died in 1958, leaving as her memorial a book that is now regarded as a classic in children’s literature. Her granddaughter Philippa Poole has published a book about her grandmother entitled The Diaries of Ethel Turner.
Reading Australia
19th century Australia: Captain Woolcot, having lost his wife tragically young, remarried a much younger young woman to provide his six children with a new mother. Together, they had another child, making seven. The Captain felt it was necessary to run the family with army discipline, but his rules and regulations were no match for the fun loving children, led by the redoubtable Judy.
"But now it was morning, and she could disbelieve it no longer. Esther had come to her bedside and kissed her sorrowfully, her beautiful face troubled and tender. The kind-hearted stepmother had begged as she had never done before for a remission of poor Judy's sentence, but the Captain was adamant. To boarding school she must go!"
GoodReads
Meet Rose by
It's 1900 and Rose lives with her family in a big house in Melbourne. She wants to play cricket, climb trees and be an adventurer! But Rose's mother has other ideas. Then Rose's favourite young aunt comes to town, and everything changes. Will Rose's mother let Aunt Alice stay? And will Rose ever get to do the things she loves? Meet Rose and join her adventure in the first of four stories about a Federation girl who's determined to do things her way!
BooksDirect
Playing Beatie Bow by
Distraught over her parents' separation, Abigail follows a strange child called Beatie Bow and time slips back a hundred years where she becomes involved with an Australian shopkeeper's family.
A Waltz for Matilda by
'Once a jolly swagman camped by a Billabong Under the shade of a Coolibah tree And he sang as he watched and waited till his Billy boiled You'll come a‐waltzing Matilda with me...' In 1894, twelve-year-old Matilda flees the city slums to find her unknown father and his farm. But drought grips the land, and the shearers are on strike. Her father has turned swaggie and he's wanted by the troopers. In front of his terrified daughter, he makes a stand against them, defiant to the last. 'You'll never catch me alive, said he...' Set against a backdrop of bushfire, flood, war and jubilation, this is the story of one girl's journey towards independence. It is also the story of others who had no vote and very little but their dreams. Drawing on the well-known poem by A.B. Paterson and from events rooted in actual history, this is the untold story behind Australia's early years as an emerging nation. 'Jackie French has a passion for history, and an enviable ability to weave the fascinating minutiae of everyday life into a good story.' Magpies Magazine