Australia - Rabbit-Proof Fence

Book #8: Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time - Doris Pilkington

"The remarkable true story of three young girls who cross the harsh Australian desert on foot to return to their home.

Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-winning author Doris Pilkington traces the captivating story of her mother, Molly, one of the three young girls uprooted from her community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. At the settlement, Molly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their aboriginal heritage, and taught to be culturally white. After regular stays in solitary confinement, the three girls, scared and homesick, planned and executed a daring escape from the grim camp, with its harsh life of padlocks, barred windows, and hard cold beds. 

The girls headed for the nearby rabbit-proof fence that stretched over 1,000 miles through the desert toward their home. Their journey lasted over a month, and they survived on everything from emus to feral cats, while narrowly avoiding the police, professional trackers, and hostile white settlers. Their story is a truly moving tale of defiance and resilience."

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I chose this book because I was interested to read about the similarities between the treatment of aboriginal Australians and Native Americans. Both Australia and the United States have a history that includes kidnapping indigenous children and sending them to "schools" to be assimilated into white culture. 

I also found myself comparing this book to the last book I read - The Hundred-Year Walk. Both tell the true stories of people who were forced from their homelands, and their struggle to return. But this one, unfortunately, was a much harder read - in that it jumped around from one topic to the next, the flow just wasn't there. It was difficult to get into this book. The first section is an odd history of the aboriginal people that's disjointed and doesn't seem to connect to the story of the three girls. Once you get to their story, the book picks up. But even at 135 pages, I had to force myself to keep returning to this book and get through it.