Winner of the 1990 David Unaipon Award for unpublished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, this fictional account tells of the lives of three generations of Aboriginal women compelled to live in accordance with restrictive white values. It forms the first volume of the Nungar trilogy. The second volume was 'Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence', which was filmed as 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' (2002) by director Phillip Noyce, and the final volume was the autobiographical 'Under the Wintamarra Tree'.