Exiled down under

Ester Levy is an ordinary eleven-year-old girl growing up in eighteenth century England when her life changes suddenly and drastically. While doing some errands for her mother, Ester is wrongly accused of shoplifting and must serve her sentence of hard labour in the far away, odd country of Australia. Everything is so strange to Ester there, from the animals to the plants, and most especially, to the eccentric couple whom she must serve. Ester is not the first family member to be wrenched away from home; her father went missing on a voyage several years before. Will the Levy family ever be reunited? How can Ester maintain her Yiddishkeit in such a foreign, bizarre place?