Left of the Rising Sun

Ten-year-old Buck Brown is the sole survivor of a plane crash in the interior of Australia's Northern Territory. Watching the plane sink into the murky water of a remote outback billabong, he remembers the pilot saying they had been flying off-course for hours. Search parties will never find Buck, he decides. There is only one way out, to walk several hundred kilometres home. With grim resolve, Buck sets out on a trek that will require resolve, knowledge, and ingenuity, a journey that will test his strength to the limit. He will be a participant in the elemental struggle for life and survival. Buck's gruelling trial will also teach him surprising lessons about friendship and loyalty. If he is successful it will be a trek that leads not only back to his family and home but also to a maturity not always achieved in a full lifetime.

John Holland grew up in the Australian outback. He has been a stockman (Australian cowboy), miner, roadworker, professional hunter, newspaper columnist and media officer for a politician. His fiction is about life and the question of where we fit into an uncertain universe.