Terra Nullius

Jacky, an Indigneous boy in Australia, runs away from the farm where he is a slave of a colonizer to find his family, but like so many Indigenous peoples, his family has been killed by colonizers. As the hunt for the boy intensifies, the book follows the story of both the Indigenous people and the colonizers, who are assumed to be Europeans, but midway through the novel the story is turned upside down as readers realize the colonizers are not what they seem. This tension-filled novel can help students understand the impacts of colonization, draw parallels between the experience of First Nations people in Australia and B.C., and launch discussion of attitudes towards Indigenous peoples throughout history.