A Good Read

Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington (pseudonym of Nugi Garimara) 
The remarkable true story of three young girls who cross the harsh Australian desert on foot to return to their home. 
Western Australia, 1931. Government policy dictates taking half-caste children from their Aboriginal mothers and sending them a thousand miles away to what amounts to indentured servitude at Government settlements, disguised as "saving them from themselves".
Molly, Daisy, and Grace (two sisters and a cousin aged 14, 10, and 8) arrive at their Gulag and promptly escape. Under Molly's lead they walk north, following a fence that keeps rabbits from settlements, eluding native trackers and the regional constabulary. Their pursuers take orders from the government's "chief protector of Aborigines," A.O. Neville, blinded by Anglo-Christian certainty, evolutionary world view and conventional wisdom. 
The girls eventually make it back to their home and family only to be re-captured and sent back. 
A very good read.  An absorbing history of the treatment of Aboriginals by the “We know what’s best for you” brigade.  But the “protector” of Aborigines failed to understand the bond between families, and the determination of the girls to want to be with their loved ones no matter what.