The Girl from the Great Sandy Desert

Jukuna Mona Chuguna was a Walmajarri woman from the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia. She left the desert with her husband in the 1950s to live and work on cattle and sheep stations in the Kimberley’s Fitzroy Valley. Later, Jukuna took up painting and became a well-regarded artist throughout Australia and overseas. She was a natural teacher and great storyteller. Her writing features in other Magabala Books: Two Sisters (2016) and Out of the Desert: Stories from the Walmajarri Exodus (2002). She died in 2011.

Pat Lowe was born and grew up in England and migrated to Australia in 1972. She worked as a teacher in Africa and as a prison psychologist in Australia. She met Jimmy Pike in 1979 and a few years later set up camp with him in the desert. What followed was a collaboration with Jimmy on many books. Pat worked with Jukuna Mona Chuguna and Ngarta Jinny Bent on their stories. She now lives in Broome. Pat Lowe’s earlier title, Desert Dog, won the WA Premier’s Literary Award and was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book.

Mervyn Street is a Gooniyandi artist, from the Fitzroy River region of northern Western Australia. In his youth he worked as a stockman and later developed his artistic talents, producing paintings, drawings and prints of station life.

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