The Little Black Princess

The Little Black Princess

By: Mrs Aeneas Gunn (Jeannie Gunn)

The Little Black Princess was written by Mrs Gunn in 1905 after living on 'Elsey Station', the cattle station managed by her husband in Australia's Northern Territory for a year.

The Little Black Princess tells the story a young Aboriginal girl, Bett-Bett, the neice of the local Aboriginal 'King' who is partially adopted by Mrs Gunn. The book is quite short but gives an insight into Aboriginal culture, beliefs and stories as well as station life in the early 1900's.

A Fortunate Life - A B Facey

I finished reading A Fortunate Life just last week. Its an Australian Classic and a highly regarded book.

I was pleasantly supprised. A Fortunate Life is the simply written life story of Albert Facey, from his birth in country Victoria to the relocation of his family to Western Australia with his Grandmother. A Fortunate Life tells the story of the massive hardships that Albert had to face; from trying to find work without having ever been to school, to the terrors of WW1 and Gallipoli. This book gave me a greater understand and appreciation of the hardships faced by those living in Australia at the beginning of the 20th century.

I would definately recommend A Fortunate Life!

SAS Survival Handbook

Author: John "Lofty" Wiseman

First Published: 1986

Summary: I don’t think you can ever finish reading this book. It is jam packed full of really practical survival tips. My brother and I both have a copy of this book and it inspired us to camp out in the bush for a night. We lit a campfire with flint and magnesium, built a shelter out of broken branches and two trees, made a bed with dried grass and slept the night in it with survival blankets that our granddad gave us which looked and felt like aluminium foil!

The shelter has survived 1 ½ years of rain, wind and crazed, half blind wombats.

This book is a really great survival book and guaranteed to get you out of the house trying to make shelters, snares or identify poisonous or edible plants.