Walkabout Kid

In Walkabout Kid we go back to the 1960s and meet Jeanne—an American girl whose parents are eager to move overseas and expose their family to a wider world. With a lively sense of humor, Jeanne and her siblings, in a sequence of escapades, adjust to new schools, cultures, and customs. Although especially smitten with Western Australia where she lives from age seven to twelve, Jeanne also explores other lands as her family takes round-the-world “walkabouts” to places like Thailand, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, and Africa. Along the way, she discovers the nature of adventure.

I knew something about adventure by this time, so I knew that could mean many things. I knew some adventures are hard and some are soft, and some are first one and then the other. I knew an adventure would not necessarily turn out as imagined, nor would I always know what to do. I knew that not only is a story an adventure, but an adventure is a story—with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

As her family prepares to move back to America, Jeanne’s time as an Aussie kid comes to an end. This is her story—a story that invites the reader to join in the fun and excitement of new experiences!