![]() ![]() When Colonel Bryant comes to dinner the children are relegated to a room upstairs. He is of the old school thinking, that children should be seen and not heard. From early chapters it is clear he does not hold the same values many modern parents would hold. He employs a somewhat ineffective governess for their education, excepting Pip who goes to a grammar school. Woolcot is an army captain who has little empathy with his children. ![]() This is the story of Captain John Woolcot, his six children from his first marriage (his wife having died four years before) and his second wife, Esther, only twenty years old, with a child of her own to Woolcot, called the General by everyone. But while this book will have some appeal to modern children, depending on the child, its style and values might be jarring to some. Classics are a part of the cultural heritage and that makes them worthy. That makes it the kind of book, I think, that well-meaning grandparents give to their grandchildren for presents with a hopeful glimmer in their eye. The fact that it has never been out of print since then, that it has been translated into many languages, and has been read in countries as distant from Australia as Sweden, attests to its enduring popularity. Seven Little Australians was first published in 1894 and is now considered an Australian classic. ![]()
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