> Skip to content
  • Published: 25 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781742534596
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 132

Our Australian Girl: Meet Nellie (Book 1)




It's 1849 . . . and Nellie O'Neill is arriving in South Australia on a ship bringing orphan girls from Irish workhouses. Nellie and her best friend, Mary, have left the famine in Ireland far behind, and are full of hopes and dreams for the future. 

It's 1849 . . .
and Nellie O'Neill is arriving in South Australia on a ship bringing orphan girls from Irish workhouses. Nellie and her best friend, Mary, have left the famine in Ireland far behind, and are full of hopes and dreams for the future. Nellie longs to learn to read, to be part of a family once more, and never to be hungry again. But with no job and no one to turn to, how will Nellie make her wishes come true?
Meet Nellie and join her adventure in the first of four stories about an Irish girl with a big heart, in search of the freedom to be herself.

  • Published: 25 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781742534596
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 132

About the authors

Penny Matthews

Penny Matthews is a freelance writer and editor based in Adelaide. She has written YA and junior novels, chapter books for beginning readers, and picture books for all age groups. Her picture books include Pudding and Chips (a CBCA Notable Book in 2005), Little Red Bear (shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards in 2004) and A Year On Our Farm, which was the CBCA's 2003 Book of the Year (Early Childhood) and a CBCA Honour Book in the Picture Book of the Year category. In 2010 Something About Water was joint winner of the Wilderness Society's Environment Award for Children's Literature. A Girl Like Me, her first young adult novel, was also a 2010 CBCA Notable Book and won the Sisters in Crime's 2011 Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Lucia Masciullo

Lucia Masciullo grew up in Livorno, Tuscany. She moved to Australia in 2007 and since then she has been happily working as an illustrator. She has illustrated more than 20 books, among which are the CBCA Honour Book and Prime Minister Award short-listed Come Down, Cat! by Sonya Hartnett, and the Our Australian Girl series. She now lives on the Gold Coast.

Awards & recognition

REAL Children's Choice Awards

Shortlisted  •  2013  •  Younger Readers