Twelve-year-old Isa and her younger siblings, Johnno, Rosie and Billy, live with their mother, Ann Wyatt. Their father is away building the Great Ocean Road, for which his family receives food parcels every week. Ann is making ends meet by working as a cleaner, the children do what they can by delivering papers, collecting bottles and taking in washing. The family is just coping.

The only thing left is for the children to be split up and placed in orphanages, but Isa will not have that. She evades the people trying to help them by inventing an “Auntie Kate”, who she says is waiting for them in Colac. And so, with only the bare essentials packed into a pram, the children set off on a train ride to Colac and then a long walk in search of their father.


Ann Wyatt with her four kids Isa, Johnno, Rosie, and Billy are living alone and away from their father who is a hardworking man building the Great Ocean Road for which his family only receives food as parcel on a weekly basis. Ann the mother is working as a cleaner in order to support her kids and her children help her by delivering news papers, collecting bottles, and washing from what people have given them to wash. Then one day, while working, Ann is knocked unconscious and taken to hospital, where she is diagnosed with TB.
What is left is the children to be split into orphanages but the oldest child Isa does not want that. She escapes from people trying to help by making up a story about an Auntie Kate who she claims is waiting and sets off in a pursuit for her father.
I recommend this book to those children who loves story's about family's how they spend their life's.