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'In colonial Australian children’s literature, the desire to exert control over the land, its inhabitants, and the construction of a national identity has been a central concern, exemplified in the narrative of the lost child in the Australian bush. The lost child trope offers a reflection of “Australian anxiety” (Pierce, The Country of Lost Children: An Australian Anxiety. Cambridge University Press, 1999), symbolising the troubled negotiation in integrating European ideals onto an Indigenous landscape (Pierce, The Country of Lost Children: An Australian Anxiety, xii. Cambridge University Press, 1999); this is heightened when the lost child is female. Colonial texts place deviant female characters as being subsumed by the bush as a culmination of concerns about national identity and gender roles. This chapter explores the colonial tradition of representation of the girl and the bush as entities to be feared and dominated through A Little Bushmaid by Mary Grant Bruce and Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner. It considers how contemporary Australian Young Adult texts rewrite the lost child in the bush trope through the complex symbolic relationship between the girl and the bush in Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden and The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina. The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf reclaims a focus on Indigenous land, identity, knowledge, and narrative, returning to Indigenous roots.' (Publication abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- The Country of Lost Children : An Australian Anxiety 1999 multi chapter work criticism biography
- Seven Little Australians 1894 single work children's fiction
- A Little Bush Maid 1905 single work children's fiction
- Tomorrow, When the War Began 1993 single work novel
- The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf 2012 single work novel