Dot and the Kangaroo is an 1899 Australian children's book written by Ethel C. Pedley about a little girl named Dot who gets lost in the Australian bush and is eventually befriended by a kangaroo and several other marsupials.

[1] A 5-year-old girl named Dot is lost in the bush after chasing a hare into the wood and losing sight of her home.

Upon eating the berries, Dot is able to understand the language of all animals, and she tells the kangaroo her plight.

The kangaroo, who has lost her own joey, decides to help little Dot despite her own fear of humans.

They consult the platypus (who insists on being called Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus) and he tells them that Willy Wagtail will be able to help her.