Home Child
A child migrant in New Zealand
Author: Dawn McMillan
Illustrator: Trish Bowles
ISBN: 978-0-947506-58-2
RRP: $27.99
Specs: 270 x 210 mm portrait, HB, 40 pp, colour
Published: 9 April 2019
For Teacher Resource: click here

The Book:
‘Tears were close as I talked to the class about where I had come from.
The way I spoke, my accent, the words I used, made me different from everyone else.’

Home Child is the true story of Pat Brown, whose father made the heart-wrenching decision in 1950 to send his children from London to New Zealand for a better life.

The four kids enjoy their ship voyage from Britain, not knowing that they will never be going home again — nor that only Pat and her sister would be staying together when they are adopted by Kiwi families.

In these pages Pat (now resident in Nelson) retells the story of making a new life in New Zealand to her granddaughter Sarah Rose, hauntingly capturing the experience of young children consigned to a strange but welcoming country.

In 2010 Pat represented New Zealand at the British Government’s official apology to child migrants. This is her story.