Goldfields Girl

Description

This heartfelt and bold novel from CBCA Award winner Elaine Forrestal is about a young girl's life in the harsh environment of the WA gold rush in the 1890s. It's 1892. Amid a fevered gold rush, fourteen-year-old Clara Saunders is in search of adventure in the new outback town of Coolgardie. A friendship with cheeky young water carter Jack is a promising start, but the goldfields are a harsh place, where water is scarce, disease is common and where many men will never find the fortune they've come to seek. With unforeseen tragedies on the horizon, Clara's time in the dusty town will truly test the limits of her fierceness and determination.

Elaine Forrestal is an award-winning author of fiction titles for young readers. Her novel Someone Like Me won a Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award and a West Australian Young Readers' Book Award (Hoffman Award), was commended for the National Award for Special Educational Needs Book and Software Awards in the UK, and has been translated into Slovenian and Italian. Elaine is a full-time writer who is based in Western Australia and travels all over the world to speak at festivals and to present writing workshops. She has appeared at events in Australia, Singapore, France, Italy and Ireland.