AustLit

'This is an exceptional little book. Its humorous tone, brevity and limited distribution (Adelaide only) can easily deter from the fact that here is a valuable insider’s account of the formative period of a remote Aboriginal settlement. Former mission schoolteacher and twice Pitjantjatjara translator of Alice in Wonderland, Nancy Sheppard tells a story about and across colonial divides. She spent nine years (1955 to 1964) on what is now Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands in north-western South Australia and has maintained lifelong bonds with her former workmates and friends. Neither anecdotal nor scholarly, yet more than a personal memoir, this perceptive portrayal of daily life on the former Presbyterian mission station of Ernabella and the first two years of the Fregon settlement is a welcome contribution to the social history of the region and Australian colonial history. Poignant depictions of the physical environment, the station and especially the classroom are interspersed with thought-provoking arguments about literacy, language learning and bi-cultural education, notes on parent–teacher interaction and excursions, stolen children, patterns of work and resource distribution, illness, diseases and accidents, intellectual challenges faced as a former evangelist, sexual abuse, nuclear tests. All are presented as life experiences through the lens of encounters with remarkable individuals, black and white.' (Introduction)