Age range: 5–8

Many thousands of years ago, the first people arrived in Australia and made this land their home, but when Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, things changed forever. Now, Australia is home to children of many cultures and backgrounds.

Australian Kids through the Years takes a look at children's lives, from the time of the first children, to the colonial era and Federation, and through the decades of the twentieth century to the present day. For each period, the book introduces a particular girl and a boy who then feature in the following spread. 

The spreads show what Australian kids liked to eat, the games they played, the clothes they wore and the activities they enjoyed. See how these things have changed through the years. What games did Aboriginal children like Kiah and Mandu once play? How did Meg and William wear their hair in colonial times? What books did Matthew and Ming read during the 1970s? Which toys were huge in the 1990s?