Review Blog

Sep 02 2008

The night we made the flag : A Eureka story by Carole Wilkinson

Black Dog Books, ISBN 2008978 174203007 4
(Age: 9-13) Carole Wilkinson uses the information about the Eureka flag to tell the story of its making. Three women spend the night before the Eureka Stockade, December 3, 1854, to sew a flag that the men would raise high above their hastily built fortification on Bakery Hill. Wilkinson's story takes elements of many stories passed down through generations about who made the flag and put these together with what is known about the flag to make a satisfying tale of the secretive nature of the task. The telling takes the reader into the tent where the women work all night, fetching supplies from other women, using donated materials and finally using a daughter's precious petticoat for the stars. Carefully, Wilkinson builds up the watchfulness shown by the women, their caution at their task, their ever present concern that they will be discovered.

More information about the making of the flag is given at the back of the picture book, and information can be gleaned from http://www.balgal.com/ (the website for the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery where students can view the flag).
Fran Knight