"Walk a little further with me.
We are here to collect the vines.
Here to find the rushes,
to fuse the fibers.
Sit beneath the stringybark with me.
We are here to soak and split."
Australian writer, Kirli Saunders, invites young readers to accompany an elder and child as she introduces the values of traditional knowledge. The text speaks of yarning, a practice that refers to storytelling as much as it is concerned with the fibre arts.
These female elders pass down their understanding and knowledge concerning the environment. As they walk together, the two meet community members and take careful note of what is happening around them. They also continue to collect vines and rushes needed for the yarning. Yarning is what the community does to bring people together and to pass along knowledge about rising sea levels, cultural displacement and climate change. Weaving Indigenous knowledge into the fabric of their days and lives, the community works together to create a better world.
Freya Blackwood has been illustrating books for children for more that twenty years. The warmth she brings to her visual storytelling is evident on every spread, as she follows the woman and child along the water and past an everchanging landscape. Scenes of garbage dumped in the water, crumbling foundations, and a community of the homeless eventually become background to the growing knowledge and interest in making life better. The people bond through their art and create textiles woven together into an uplifting image that promises a brighter future.
"We are here to fly,
here to shape this world together."
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