Doris Pilkington had spent much of her early life, from the age of four, at the Moore River Native Settlement in Western Australia, the same facility the book chronicles her mother's, aunt's, and cousin's escape from as children.

While repeating the tale at an Aboriginal family history event in Perth, one of the attendees told Pilkington he was aware of the story and that the case was fairly well documented.

Her first novel, Caprice, A Stockman's Daughter, won the David Unaipon Literary Award and was published in 1990 by the University of Queensland Press.

Molly, her half-sister Daisy, and their cousin Gracie are taken to Moore River for schooling to become more like white people and to eventually be taken to a (more) rural part of Western Australia.

Noyce agreed to direct the film, which was released in 2002 and starred Everlyn Sampi as Molly and British actor Kenneth Branagh as A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines.