This entire series is a wonderful way to learn history or teach it to adolescents. I find today's generations seem to recall more when they learn through other people (pop songs, celebrity gossip, etc.), so what better way to teach history than through someone else's perspective? Yes, "authentic" diaries would be "better", but would the language really hold the modern student's attention? Did the diary writer know what WOULD be important in the context of history? Probably not.

Fascinating story about outback Australia in 1927. I must admit that I thought there would be very little interesting in this book but I was hooked after the first few pages. Harris has managed to include a wonderful collection of bush yarns and also link together various desert based incidents - dingo fence, flying doctor service, afghan camel drivers, the desolation felt by pioneer women, death from isolation, snake bite or starvation, rabbit plague and attack by aborigines. You name it, it is all there in this wonderful story.
Jimmy is sent to live with his aunt in the remote South Australian outback. His Aunt lives in a rough hut with 3 children ( 2 died young) and her husband Chip, who rides camels and is absent for long periods of time checking the dingo fence. Meanwhile there is the vegetable patch to be kept free of rabbits, water to be carted, firewood to be chopped, and a thousand other chores but Jimmy finds time to scribble a few lines in his diary every so often. The reason why Jimmy has been sent to the Barlows haunts him and eventually he tells Price the truth about his father being in gaol for a crime he didn't commit.
Then there is a terrible accident and Jimmy, Price Audrey and the baby Douglas must walk for three days to get help for Mrs B when a water tower falls on her.p.79-82 Jimmy runs away. ( )