Surviving Sydney Cove by Goldie Alexander

This is one of the My Story series from Scholastic. Last year I read one of these books to my class and I loved how it opened up the world of books for them. It was about ancient Rome, so my students were borrowing books from the Horrible Histories series following up from my shared reading, they borrowed non fiction books to find out more facts about the Romans. I am really encouraged to read this genre to find more engaging books to share with my students. 

My Australian story: Surviving Sydney Cove - the diary of Elizabeth Harvey by Goldie Alexander is on the NSW Premier's reading list for grades 7-9. It is written in a diary format by Lizzie. A convict transported to Sydney Cove. She is overworked and starved and this fictional diary recounts the year 1790.  Although a piece of fiction, there are some historical notes at the end reporting facts about this period of time. I thought this book would be a good tie in with my classes previous knowledge of colonial Australia and autobiographies/ historical fiction.