Michael Sedunary’s The Unlikely Story of Bennelong and Phillip is a beautiful picture book exploring the friendship between the founding Governor Arthur Phillip and an Aboriginal named Bennelong, despite the polarized world in which they live, during the first settlement in Australia. 
 
Their relationship was so close that Phillip even ordered his men not to retaliate after his right shoulder was struck by a wooden barb flung by one of Bennelong’s tribe members.  He also built a big hut for Bennelong, where the Sydney Opera House now sits, close to the Governor’s mansion, where the Museum of Sydney is located. 
 
This picture book comes with stunning illustrations by the celebrated Australian ceramic artist, Bern Emmerichs, whose scrupulously detailed art of Australia’s colonial past makes each page an art piece to behold.