'Walking with Camels – The Story of Bertha Strehlow by Leni Shilton is a gorgeous, subtle rendering of the both brutal and starkly beautiful Australian desert, and those relationships that exist and are formed within this landscape. Shilton’s verse novel charts Bertha Strehlow’s transformation from a naïve and shaking girl, determined to follow the man she loves into unknown territory against the advice of loved ones, into a woman possessed, damaged and strengthened by the desert. Shilton’s rigorous research, bolstered by found poems and historical and biographical notes, grounds the poems in a moving reality, filled equally with suffering and joy.' (Introduction)