Dot and the Kangaroo

Lost beneath the towering blackbutts, little Dot looks up to find a kangaroo beside her—with tears running down its soft grey muzzle. Then the kangaroo offers her a handful of bright berries, and the silent bush bursts into voices.

In Ethel C. Pedley’s 1899 tale, the Australian bush is a vast, prickly wilderness where a child can lose sight of home in a moment. Dot has followed a hare too far and now faces night alone, until a kind kangaroo recognizes her fear: she, too, has lost someone—her baby. The berries let Dot understand the creatures all around her, and the kangaroo promises to help her find her way back. But the bush is full of strange voices, and Dot is a long way from home. What will she discover on the way?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.