'This article examines children's novels and short stories published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that feature bushfires and the ceremonial fires associated with Indigenous Australians. It suggests that British children's novels emphasise the horror of bushfires and the human struggle involved in conquering them. In contrast, Australian-authored children's fictions represent less anthropocentric understandings of the environment. New attitudes toward the environment are made manifest in Australian women's fiction including J. M. Whitfield's ‘The Spirit of the Bushfire’ (1898), Ethel Pedley's Dot and the Kangaroo (1899), Olga D. A. Ernst's ‘The Fire Elves’ (1904), and Amy Eleanor Mack's ‘The Gallant Gum Trees’ (1910). Finally, the article proposes that adult male conquest and control of the environment evident in British fiction is transferred to a child protagonist in Mary Grant Bruce's A Little Bush Maid (1910), dispensing with the long-standing association between the Australian bush and threats to children.' (Publication summary)
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'Lost and afraid in the darkening bush, Dot is befriended by a kind Kangaroo. She eats the berries of understanding and is then able to communicate with all the bush creatures, who eventually guide her home.
'The intriguing tale of Dot and her Kangaroo is told by Ethel Pedley with the charm that has made this book an Australian favourite since it was first published in 1899. Now, as then, children will be enthralled by this oldest of Australian classics, it will endure to entertain generations to come.' (Publication summary)
Adaptations
- form y Dot and the Kangaroo ( dir. Yoram Gross ) Sydney : Yoram Gross Film Studios , 1977 Z1256824 1977 single work film/TV children's fantasy Based on the book of the same name by Ethel Pedley, the story concerns Dot, the young child of an outback settler, who becomes lost in the bush. She is befriended by a huge female red kangaroo, leading to Dot travelling about the countryside in the kangaroo's pouch. The two meet a number of characters on their travels, including a platypus, a koala, and a kookaburra, and have several exciting adventures before the kangaroo eventually helps Dot find her way home.
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Creature
2016
single work
drama
children's
'Creature is a new interactive digital and physical theatre experience based on the much loved Australian story, Dot and the Kangaroo.
'Discover the magical landscape of the Australian bush as you've never seen it before, where large scale 3D projections of familiar animals spring to life and respond to the dance and aerial performers on stage. How long before this unique native wildlife disappears as humans encroach on their habitat?
'Creature invites you to step into an enchanting world to explore how human actions affect the Australian environment.
'First commissioned by QPAC for the 2016 Out of the Box festival for children eight years and under.
'Proudly supported by Brisbane's Child. ' (Production summary)
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y
Creature
2018
14003174
2018
single work
drama
'The classic Australian story Dot and the Kangaroo jumps into the digital age with this stunning new stage adaptation. Featuring breathtaking aerial acrobatics, live music and spectacular 3D projections, you will discover the Australian landscape as you’ve never seen it before. See indigenous flora and fauna, meet creatures in their natural habitat and explore their quirky characteristics amidst the beauty and fragility of the Australian bush.
'When 5-year-old Dot gets lost in the bush, she is rescued by a kangaroo who gives her magic ‘berries of understanding’ that allow her to follow the languages of all the animals and insects around her. With this new gift, Dot and Kangaroo set out on an action-packed adventure to return her home – an adventure that changes the way she sees the Australian bush and her place within it forever.
'But how long before this unique native wildlife disappears as humans encroach on their habitat? Creature invites you to enter the magical world of the Australian bush to explore how our actions and choices affect the world around us.'
Source: Darwin Entertainment Centre.
Reading Australia
Notes
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Dedication: To the children of Australia in the hope of enlisting their sympathy for the many beautiful, amiable and frolicsome creatures of their fair land; whose extinction, through ruthless destruction is being surely accomplished.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille and sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Animal-Human Compassion : Structures of Feeling in Dark Pastoral
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Emotions : History, Culture, Society , vol. 4 no. 1 2020; (p. 183–208)'This essay argues that animal-human compassion, defined as human fellow-feeling with (and not for) animals, is most urgently articulated at points of crisis in human history, such as the terrible bushfires and drought of the Australian summer of 2019–20. Literary history, particularly of pastoral literature, reveals animal-human compassion as a long-contested structure of feeling. The pastoral template established in classical literature, and refined in early modern literature, sets conventions for proper human-animal emotional relations. These ideals are radically destabilised in Andrew Marvell’s ‘dark pastoral’ civil war poetry. This troubled legacy flows through Australian settler-colonial writing about animals, particularly the kangaroo; Barron Field, Charles Harpur and Ethel Pedley strive to intervene in the patriotic myth-making associated with colonial settlement and Federation.' (Publication abstract)
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Imagining Colonial Environments : Fire in Australian Children's Literature
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: International Research in Children’s Literature , July vol. 13 no. 1 2020; (p. 1-14) -
Why Are Australian Children's Books Suddenly so Political?
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 27 November 2018; -
y
From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Children's Literature, 1840-1940
Toronto
:
University of Toronto Press
,
2018
15039944
2018
multi chapter work
criticism
'Through a comparison of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand texts published between 1840 and 1940, From Colonial to Modern develops a new history of colonial girlhoods revealing how girlhood in each of these emerging nations reflects a unique political, social, and cultural context.
'Print culture was central to the definition, and redefinition, of colonial girlhood during this period of rapid change. Models of girlhood are shared between settler colonies and contain many similar attitudes towards family, the natural world, education, employment, modernity, and race, yet, as the authors argue, these texts also reveal different attitudes that emerged out of distinct colonial experiences. Unlike the imperial model representing the British ideal, the transnational girl is an adaptation of British imperial femininity and holds, for example, a unique perception of Indigenous culture and imperialism. Drawing on fiction, girls’ magazines, and school magazine, the authors shine a light on neglected corners of the literary histories of these three nations and strengthen our knowledge of femininity in white settler colonies.' (Publication summary)
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The Art of the Colonial Kangaroo Hunt
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 31 August 2018;'Since the beginnings of settler occupation in Australia, the kangaroo has been claimed at once as a national symbol and as a type of vermin to be destroyed en masse. In Kate Clere McIntyre and Michael McIntyre’s recent award-winning film, Kangaroo: A Love Hate Story, Sydney academic Peter Chen sums up this stark contradiction: “Kangaroos are wonderful, fuzzy, they’re maternal, and they’re also a pest that should be eliminated wholesale”.' (Introduction)
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Untitled
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , vol. 36 no. 1 1992; (p. 31-32)
— Review of Seven Little Australians 1894 single work children's fiction ; Dot and the Kangaroo 1899 single work children's fiction -
Untitled
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , September vol. 7 no. 4 1992; (p. 30)
— Review of Dot and the Kangaroo 1899 single work children's fiction -
Untitled
1992
single work
review
— Appears in: School Library News , November vol. 24 no. 4 1992; (p. 23)
— Review of Dot and the Kangaroo 1899 single work children's fiction - y Was Lost Gip Really Lost? : Some Representations of the Lost Child in Nineteenth-Century Discourses of Childhood St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2009 Z1231837 2001 single work criticism
- y Ethel Pedley's 'Dot' Reaches Her Century St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2009 Z1256402 2000 single work biography criticism Biographical details of Ethel Pedley's life and works, literary and musical.
- y Dot and the Kangaroo Sydney : Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1977 Z1365625 1977 single work criticism Discussion of the full length animated movie directed and co-written by Yoram Goss, based on Ethel Pedley's book, including a review by John Hend.
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Revisiting Dot and the Kangaroo: Finding a Way in the Australian Bush
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , February no. 41 2007; Rahbek suggests that, rather than being a tale of being lost in the bush, Dot and the Kangaroo is in a fact a story of being found. 'It is the indigenous creature who can show Dot how to find the true values of the Australian land and its bush creatures ... Dot learns, this paper argues, the importance of security and a sense of place from these animals, a security they themselves have lost in the wake of the European settlers' arrival.' -
Changing Perspectives : The Implied Reader in Australian Children's Literature 1841-1994
1995
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , March vol. 26 no. 1 1995; (p. 25-38)