Garimara wrote Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996), a story about the stolen generation, and based on three Aboriginal girls, among them Pilkington's mother, Molly Craig, who escaped from the Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australia and travelled 2,414 km (1,500 miles) for nine weeks to return to their family.
Pilkington was born at Balfour Downs Station, near the north Western Australian settlement of Jigalong.
[5] Garimara's Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is considered a powerful description of the abuses endured by the Stolen Generations.
[6] Her follow-up book, Under the Wintamarra Tree, details her own life at Moore River and at the Roelands Native Mission and how she managed to escape by enrolling in a nursing school.
In the four books, Caprice, a Stockman's Daughter, Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, Home to Mother, and Under the Wintamarra Tree, Pilkington documented three generations of women in her family.