Since the publication of A Little Bush Maid in 1910, a great deal has changed in this nation's way of life. Huge sheep and cattle stations were the norm back then, and stockmen worked the land as families passed down estates from generation to generation. Given the massive crew Billabong was supporting and the present climate, which has brought both catastrophic droughts and devastating floods in the past three years, such a property would likely be an economic nightmare today. On December 20, 1910, my great-grandmother Myra Lillie Moore, née Shields, received this book as the top honor for "thoughtfulness." The 12-year-old Norah Linton's tale, A Little Bush Maid, is set on the sizable and profitable cattle station known as "Billabong" in the Victorian countryside in the early 1900s. It includes many adventures and surprises, especially when her brother Jim is home on vacation from boarding school with his buddy Wally. It also covers her life with her widowed father and adoring station hands.
Australian children's book author and journalist Mary Grant Bruce, popularly known as Minnie Bruce, lived from 24 May 1878 to 2 July 1958. She was best known for the Billabong series, which focused on the exploits of the Linton family on Billabong Station in Victoria and in England and Ireland during World War I, though all of her thirty-seven books were well-received in Australia and abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom. Mary Grant Bruce, the fourth child of a family of five and a direct descendant of Irish and Welsh Australians, was born in Gippsland, Victoria as Minnie Grant Bruce. She was the child of Eyre Lewis Bruce and Mary (Minnie) Atkinson Whittakers. It was distinguished by fervent patriotism, detailed depictions of the wonders and perils of the Australian landscape, and lighthearted, everyday conversation honoring the craft of yarning. As a champion of what Bruce saw as the quintessential Australian Bush values of independence, hard physical labor (for women and children as well as men), mateship, the ANZAC spirit, and Bush hospitality against more opulent, self-centered or stolid urban and British values, her books were also notable and influential.
