Publisher's Synopsis
Winner, Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards 1996 Did you know...that there were 32 children on board the First Fleet when it sailed for Australia in 1787? Or that the people in charge left behind all the ammunition for the marines' muskets and some of the clothes for the convict women? Or that they took 747,000 nails but only six butchers' knives for nearly 1300 people?Find out...*why the British government wanted to start a settlement in remote, unknown Australia *what the ships looked like *who was on them *what the settlers took (as well as what they left behind) *what they did in the very first days *how they got on with the Iora people, the Aboriginal owners *what and how they built *and why the people in the colony nearly starved in those first four years.Packed with practical detail in drawings and text, this is the book to read if you want to find out about the beginnings of modern Australia.
