The Girl from the Great Sandy Desert
Age range 8 to 13
‘Mana was born under a tree. The country she grew up in was wide as the sky, and the sun shone hot for most of the year. In every direction was sand: deep, red, warm sand that showed the footprints of every creature that walked on it...’
Beneath the hot, blue sky, Mana is joined by her brothers, sisters and cousins, as well as her many mothers and her favourite dogs. With wonderful wit, Mana recounts hunting, gathering, kinship, obligations and the never-ending search for water, all told through the eyes of a young girl.
The Girl from the Great Sandy Desert is the charming account of the life of Mana, a young Walmajarri girl, and her family in the desert country of north-west Australia. Mona’s semi-autobiographical narrative is set before European settlement impacted their lives.
Complementing each story are cultural insights that enhance the understanding of desert life, and makes for compelling reading for all ages.
The acclaimed Gooniyandi (Fitzroy River) artist Mervyn Street’s black and white illustrations capture the subtleties of the Walmajarri way of life.
Jukuna Mona Chuguna was a Walmajarri woman from the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia. She left the desert with her husband in the 1950s to live and work on cattle and sheep stations in the Kimberley’s Fitzroy Valley. Later, Jukuna took up painting and became a well-regarded artist throughout Australia and overseas. She was a natural teacher and great storyteller. Her writing features in other Magabala Books: Two Sisters (2016) and Out of the Desert: Stories from the Walmajarri Exodus (2002). She died in 2011.
Pat Lowe was born and grew up in England and migrated to Australia in 1972. She worked as a teacher in Africa and as a prison psychologist in Australia. She met Jimmy Pike in 1979 and a few years later set up camp with him in the desert. What followed was a collaboration with Jimmy on many books. Pat worked with Jukuna Mona Chuguna and Ngarta Jinny Bent on their stories. She now lives in Broome. Pat Lowe’s earlier title, Desert Dog, won the WA Premier’s Literary Award and was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book.
Mervyn Street is a Gooniyandi artist, from the Fitzroy River region of northern Western Australia. In his youth he worked as a stockman and later developed his artistic talents, producing paintings, drawings and prints of station life.
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