Title: Paddle Steamer Pearl
Author: Neridah McMullin, illustrated by Jessica Corkran
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: NLA Publishing
Published: 1st November 2026
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 36
Price: $24.99
Synopsis: All aboard the PS Alpha! Travel by paddle steamer along the Darling River with Pearl Collins, who would go on to become the first female river boat captain in Australia! Pearl and her family live on the paddle steamer Alpha. All day long, they paddle up and down the Darling and Murray rivers, trading everything from flour and tea to jewellery and wood. As summer arrives, the water levels suddenly drop.
The Alpha is stranded!
How will the family survive months on the dry riverbed? What can Pearl do to help? Will it ever rain?
Based on the true story of Pearl Wallace, Australia’s first female river boat captain!
~*~
Meet Pearl Collins, who lives on board a paddle steamer with her family. They travel along the Darling River on the PS Alpha. One day, they’re travelling along when they get stuck in the riverbed due to a drought, so their trading days and trips change as they’re stuck in the dry river bed during summer.
Pearl would go onto become the first female river boat captain in Australia years after, and this is the story of how she helped her family when the Alpha was stranded. Pearl’s idea to grow potatoes and get her siblings involved shows what she can do, and how innovative she was in a difficult time for her family.
This fictionalised account of one of Pearl’s adventures on the paddle steamer brings a much-needed story of an Australia woman to light. It’s fun for kids to read and see how people lived in the early twentieth century, and is a great educational tool for schools studying history or paddle steamers or just to see what life was like in the early twentieth century.
What makes it really cool is the end matter that talks about the real Pearl Collins and how she became Australia’s first female paddle steamer captain. She is a person I had never heard of, and like her story, there are so many that are not widely known. So books like this can bring them to life and spark curiosity about these people that have been hidden from history. Or been left out of the history books.
It’s stories like Pearl’s that show the breadth and diversity of Australian history. As I said before, there are so many other stories out there that we don’t know. That we should know alongside all the other stories and figures we do know a lot about. A book like this is a start. It introduces the person and then it brings them to life. And hopefully encourages people to find out more about the topic and person they are reading about.
We need more stories about the people like Pearl who were either overlooked, didn’t make it into the history books or were a side note. Who don’t have tomes and tomes about them. These people like Pearl who are overlooked made contributions that are just as important as all the others whom everyone knows about. I enjoyed finding out about Pearl and her paddle steamer, and this remarkable Australian woman.
Discover more from The Book Muse
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
