Publisher's synopsis
The first book in the Yinti series of three books. The stories are linked in a sequence that shows Yinti’s development from a young bushie to a competent station worker and adult. Yinti is a traditional Walmajarri Aboriginal boy growing up Great Sandy Desert in the remote North West of Australia – one of the most marginal environments on earth. This is the story of Yinti’s coming of age. He has no contact with white people until the last chapter of the book when he meets his first white man, first horse and first bullock. The stories are based on people and events as told to Pat Lowe by Jimmy Pike.
Jimmy Pike (deceased) was born near Japingka, a waterhole in the Great Sandy Desert, in about 1940, and his early years were spent as a hunter and gatherer. He walked out of the desert when he was 14-years-old when his family moved to a Kimberley cattle station and became a stockman. He spent a number of years in prison where he took up painting and soon became a well-known artist and earned his living through his art. Today, his prints and paintings hang in galleries throughout the world.
Pat Lowe migrated to Australia from England in 1972 and worked as a clinical psychologist in Western Australian prisons for many years. After seven years in Perth, she moved to the Kimberley. Her children’s book, Desert Dog won the WA Premier’s Literary Award and was also Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book.
