Carole Wilkinson is a prolific author perhaps best known for her Dragonkeeper series but she has an impressive list of non-fiction titles to her name, many concerned with Australian history. Filling in the Map is her account of some of the early European explorers of this country, their aims, trials and tribulations.
Explorers mentioned include Charles Sturt, Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth, the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, Thomas Mitchell and the quarrelsome Hume and Hovell. Original maps are used to illustrate their journeys, but as the print is very small indeed, I did not find them very informative. Illustrations consist mainly of landscapes and portraits, showing the men in their best clothes. There are also some original monochrome etchings of aboriginal peoples made at the time. Thomas Mitchell did do a moving picture of his Aboriginal guide Turandurey and her daughter Ballandella.
In a book of this scope, it is impossible to do more than mention some of the injustices suffered by Australian Aboriginal peoples through the European lust for expansion and land acquisition, but Carole Wilkinson does try to present a fair picture of the times. This carefully researched and written picture book will be a useful resource for those interested in Australia’s early European explorers.
