Jean, Our Little Australian Cousin

A transport ship cuts through southern waters carrying the Hume family away from Scottish debts toward Australian promise. Twelve-year-old Jean and her brother Fergus have never seen the land their father touts as their salvation, only heard his nostalgic stories of Melbourne's wild streets and the vast interior beyond. When they finally spot the coast, everything they imagined crumbles against the reality of a thriving colonial city seven miles square. But the bush awaits, and in the untamed stretches beyond settlement, Jean faces what every child fears: losing herself in an alien landscape. She finds her way, and in doing so, finds an unlikely friend in Kadok, a young Indigenous boy who knows the land's secrets. This is an Edwardian adventure of displacement and discovery, where a girl from the northern hemisphere must learn to read a completely different sky.