Read these primary sources and you get a different picture to the one Bruce paints. He also quotes from Mitchell, Sturt, and Dawson very selectively, leaving out all the parts that contradict his argument. For example Bruce puts a photo of a Meriam Island House (Torres Strait) in his section on ‘Arnhem Land Dome Houses'. Bruce uses the diaries of early explorers and colonists to show us the Australia where Aboriginal people built houses, dams and wells and farmed the land.The book is persuasive rather than informative, and at times inaccurate. 'Adapted for a younger readership from Pascoe's best-selling Dark Emu, this exquisitely illustrated picture book will transform how we see Australian history. Bruce uses the diaries of early explorers and colonists to show us the Australia where Aboriginal people built houses, dams and wells and farmed the land.' –Fiona Stager, The Courier Mail Young Dark Emu: A Truer History asks young readers to consider a different version of Australia's history pre-European colonisation. He allows the reader to see Australia as it was before Europeans arrived-a land of cultivated farming areas, productive fisheries, permanent homes, and an understanding of the environment and its natural resources that supported thriving villages across the continent. Using the accounts of early European explorers, colonists and farmers, Bruce Pascoe compellingly argues for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The highly-anticipated junior version of Bruce Pascoe's multi award-winning book.Bruce Pascoe has collected a swathe of literary awards for Dark Emu and now he has brought together the research and compelling first person accounts in a book for younger readers. Shortlisted for the Booksellers' Choice 2020 Children's Book of the Year Award.Shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2020: Children's.Shortlisted for the ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7-12).

Shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature.Longlisted for the CBCA 2020 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books.

Young dark emu