Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Title: Rabbit-Proof Fence
Author: Doris Pilkington
Number of Pages: 137 pages
My Rating: 4/5

This is the true story of how three girls, Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, escaped from a residential school designed to turn half-white Aboriginal children into servants for white families and walked 1600 km back to their home.

It's a good story and I enjoyed learning more about Australian history, but I found the writing style sort of hard to get into. It's neither a novel nor a straight historical account, but a mix of both, and that didn't really work for me. There would be bits written in a very fictional tone, including thoughts from characters the author couldn't have known the thoughts of, and then you'd hit a big section with excerpts of historical documents, complete with citations.

Still, I enjoyed it (and it helped that it was quite short) and would definitely recommend it.

I'm curious to see the movie and see how it compares with the book.

Comments

[blackeyedsusans.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I've read similar comments about the book. I'd like to read it though I wish the writing was more cohesive. Thanks for the review.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

It's definitely worth reading. :)

[katura.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book, but found the film to be pretty amazing, and very powerful.