Ethel Pedley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ethel Charlotte Pedley (June 19, 1859 - August 6, 1898) was an author and musician.
Her most well-known book is Dot and the Kangaroo, which featured a little girl named Dot who becomes lost in the Australian outback, and is helped to find her way back home by a friendly kangaroo.
She was a believer in the conservation of the Australian flora and fauna, and usually wrote her books from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals.
Ethel's preface to Dot and the Kangaroo was as follows:
"To the children of Australia
in the hope of enlisting their sympathies
for the many beautiful, amiable, and frolicsome creatures
of their fair land,
whose extinction, through ruthless destruction,
is being surely accomplished"
