Outback Animals: Bush Experiences and Colonialism in Dot and the Kangaroo and The Rabbits
The British colonization of Australia provided rich material for many writers of juvenile literature. The daring adventure stories of Henty and Ballantyne were manuals for the sons of Empire, stirring their patriotic allegiances and calling on their sense of adventure to ensure the continuation of the endeavours of Empire. Of the early texts originating in the colony, many were didactic in nature and more concerned with preserving a truly British mindset than representing an accurate experience of life in the newly settled land.
Ethel Pedley’s Dot and the Kangaroo (1899) is a key text in the development of a truly Australian form of children’s literature. In giving voices to native animals and allowing them to put colonial actions on trial, it offers a radically postcolonial perspective for a children’s book of its time. Its treatment of the bush, and of the place of white settlers in it, enabled an examination of Australian identity that influenced many later texts, including John Marsden’s The Rabbits (2001). In Marsden’s text, the validity of imperialism’s claim to the land is questioned as a native group of rabbits are forced to come to terms with the invasion of the bush by a newly arrived rival group. In using the rabbits’ plight as an allegory of colonisation, Marsden’s work continues the work begun in Pedley’s text.
Both of these texts offer dynamic examinations of the post-colonial situation in Australia. Their willingness to engage with controversial issues and their choice of form in writing against the grain has ensured their place not only in the field of children’s literature, but also within the wider field of postcolonialism.
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