Bindi by Kirli Saunders illustrated by Dub Leffler

Bindi is eleven and as school begins she has a feeling:

something

about this year

feels different

there's a change in the wind

and I'm excited

to find out

what it is ...

Bindi comes from a beautiful family. They share culture and country and at school Aunt Lindy talks to the children about "the importance of caring for Country that you sit on, and the Country you belong to. Aunt Lindy explains listening deeply means haring from the heart, hearing with more than ears."

Bindi finds a beautiful bird a black cockatoo or garrall. He is badly injured but with care Bindi and her family nurse him back to health and while the final release scenes are very sad they are also triumphant. Our climate can be harsh and it is not long before bushfires arrive. Bindi's house, built by grandfather is saved but other homes in her street are destroyed:

we wander the shards of our street

finding roofs bent

over smouldering bedframes

globular glass hints

at stained-window histories

melted water tanks

chatter stories about the tinder-dry earth

When you pick up this book to read or if you loan it to a reader in a school library I have an odd suggestion.  I would copy the final pages which contain the Gundungurra Word List to keep beside you as you read. I really appreciated the use of authentic language in this book but constantly flipping from front to back meant I lost some of the rhythm of the verse novel narrative. 

I adore verse novels and Bindi is up there with the best. The power of this parred back writing comes from fragments of text are able to convey enormous emotions and catastrophic life events.  I marvel at the skill it takes to write in this way:

Then Mum shares a story from her childhood - one of shelling peas by the dulang (river) with Nan Hoskins. From a time when she was safe and grounded by her community who cared for Country, taking only what they needed sprouting the land with careful back burns. 

And for a moment,

I forget

that Mum was taken.

Binid was published by Magabala Books in 2020. I do hope it arrived in time to be submitted for our CBCA Book of the Year awards. I am sure this is a book that will be selected for the 2021 Notables list and from there it is sure to appear on the short list. Here is an interview by Joy Lawn where she talks  with Dub Leffler about Bindi.  Read more about Kirli Saunders and Dub Leffler. Discover more about Kirli and her creative process here.