A young girl wanders far from camp, far from the Mothers, the Aunties and Grandmothers, and she cannot find her way back. Lost, the girl quenches her thirst at a waterhole, eats bush food when she is hungry and, as the day gets colder, she warms herself by nestling into the hollow of a rock heated by the sun’s rays. When she finally makes her way back to her people’s camp, guided by a cawing crow, she tells her little brother that she was not afraid, lost in bush, because she was “with her mother.” Fable-like in tone, this picture book, illustrated in lush and painterly acrylics, acknowledges the strong connection between Aboriginal people and their country in concert with the importance of traditional Aboriginal kinship groups.
Author-illustrator Ambelin Kwaymullina is descended from the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia and fine artist, Leanne Tobin, is of Dharug descent, the traditional Aboriginal people of Greater Western Sydney.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
