Description

C2C – YEAR 4
At the tender age of eight, chimney sweep Tom Appleby is convicted of stealing and sentenced to deportation
to Botany Bay. As he sails out with the First Fleet, Tom sadly realises that he will never set foot again on English ground.
Tom faces the challenges of the new land: hot to build a hut, farm the soil and learn from the Aboriginal Eora people how
to harvest from the land’s wealth. But too many convicts and marines are unwilling to grow their food.
Tools are wearing out, supplies are low, and with no news from England, the marines’ disconnect is growing.
And the plague strikes the Eora people…
Can the desperate colony survive?
Jackie French weaves Tom’s story together with the history of the colony, and dispels myths that have grown
about the First Fleet and those early years. She tells of a land that despite its natural abundance cannot offer
what colonists want – familiarity