[1] It won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1972.
[3] Edwin Truelance has built a house for his family in the Blue Mountains area of New South Wales, and called it "Longtime".
In a series of anecdotes and episodes Teddy, the youngest child of the family, tells the story of how the house came to be built in a region of rainforest and bushland.
In their report on the Children's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers the award's judges called the book "a warm-hearted novel for teenage girls."
"[2] Writing about Brinsmead's books for children, Walter McVitty noted that this "is a book written with economy, wisdom and humour, beautifully shaped into an artistic unity by being placed in the context of the original Daruk Aboriginal inhabitants and their legends.