As Donna Rawlins states in ‘Waves’, ‘If you are not an Indigenous Australian, your family have at some stage come to Australia from across the waves.’ Most of Australia’s population is non-Indigenous and they have either, themselves or had an ancestor come to Australia across the waves. It may have been over two hundred years ago on convict ships or during the mid-nineteenth century goldrushes or to a newly created nation in the 1900s. Maybe it was as part of the post WW2 immigration or perhaps you, or your family arrived more recently seeking asylum.
In ‘Waves’ we learn through the eyes of child travellers of the fears, illnesses, deaths, and the uncertainty of the future. They are going into the unknown, a country vastly different and a country far away. Some come alone and some come with their families but to all it is a very confronting and scary experience. The journeys are as diverse as are the people who made them. The earliest is set 50 thousand years ago with a family lost at sea while chasing schools of fish and the last, a journey built on promises of safety and welcome taken by refugees escaping war and persecution.
Each story is a double-page spread on a bleak beige background which allows the artwork and the text to stand out. The illustrations were created using graphite pencil and gouache and are in muted pastel colours, blue, brown, taupe, white. The consistency of the colour scheme throughout the book allows the stories to flow seamlessly. The book’s design, particularly the use of the endpapers gives a clear dateline of the various stories is a clever and original lead into the book. At the end of the book is historical information regarding the various stories that both informed and inspired the book.
Picture Books for Older Readers
