A key text in Aussie children's literature, published when my great-grandparents were still young, this book was read and re-read by children for 60 years, although I don't think many people my age would be familiar with it. Another fantastic female heroine, and gripping use of the landscape. By this point, colonialist Australia had developed its own personality, and that ever-changing relationship with the land is at the heart of this work.

Is it outdated? Absolutely. It might be a questionable choice for one's children because of its racial stereotypes and language. A product of its time but, on balance, an invigorating historical novel. Just maybe leave it until people are old enough to question the parts that should be questioned. ( )

I'd never heard of Mary Grant Bruce or the Billabong series until one day my grandmother started talking about the books she read as a child, some 70 years ago now. For all I knew she was making it all up because I had never heard or seen of it anywhere...until I stumbled across the first book A Little Bush Maid in a secondhand bookstore. I bought it immediately, and sat down to see what the fuss was about.

Of course, I loved it. How could I not? It's Australia, it's the bush, it's history (though fiction I believe this portrays an accurate picture of rural Australia at the time), it's a plucky little heroine who you can't help but love and a whole other cast of characters. I can see why my grandmother loved this as a child and I only wish I, too, had discovered them at a younger age (being now about 10 years above the target age).

Many who read these books today may be shocked by some of the terms and behaviour used by even the children toward the Aboriginal stable boy. I think it is important to realise, while we should in no way encourage this behaviour, we also shouldn't try to cover up that part of history. That was the way life was in the 1900s and is clearly very different to life in 2010s. Just to put my two cents in, I see no reason to politically correct any novels, including the Billabong series and also Enid Blyton books, which I believe have been 'edited'. I think that adults shouldn't be so shocked that those attitudes did once exist, and I also think that children who read the books should have an understanding of how life used to be different and why it's not like that anymore.

But I digress! This book is wonderful and I look forward to scrounging around a few more secondhand bookstores to get my paws on the rest! ( )