Lost tells the story of orphaned English brothers Tom and Jim and their young sister Kate. It’s the 1860s and they plan to join the thousands of people who flood to Australia, searching for gold. When Kate accidentally ends up on a ship bound for New Zealand the boys have to set off to Australia without her–and Kate has to fend for herself in a strange new country. The children have to endure long and often dangerous sea voyages before reaching the other side of the world. The concept of being a teenager didn’t exist in those days and children of the working classes laboured from an early age. Tom and Jim mingle with gold prospectors, both good and bad, before taking other jobs in New Zealand. Kate finds herself working as a servant. Lost vividly describes many aspects of life in New Zealand in the 1860s, a time when colonists began cutting timber for homes and many other purposes, and ships needed kauri timber for spars. Logging in New Zealand increased greatly during the gold rushes of the 1860s with sawmills springing up in the bush. Tom finds work in this area, while Jim becomes an apprentice to a surveyor. Church was a big part of the early settler’s lives. Kate is befriended and helped by a missionary family and she later stows away on a coastal vessel in an attempt to find them. Lost relates the adventures of Tom, Jim and Kate as they negotiate life far from home - and eventually reunite.