Weaving Country

‘Around and around they go,’ says Walert looking at Gugung’s hands turning the wheel of woven reeds, growing slowly and surely, bigger and bigger.

Walert's grandmother, Gugung, is collecting reeds (djirra) to weave a basket (binak) and finally, Walert is big enough to take part and learn this important cultural practice. But when a pair of blue wrens interrupt them, Walert realises that the birds have something to teach her, too.

About the Authors and Illustrator

• Aunty Kim Wandin is a masterweaver and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder. She lives in Healesville. Her traditional basket making has been handed down to her by direct lineage. Aunty Kim’s work represents a significant cultural position within the south east of Victoria as part of an important group of arts practitioners.
• Chris Joy is a writer, artist and curator who is a full time creator of public art. She lives and works in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. Chris has developed many children's literature programs, events and exhibitions in cultural organisations and was on the design team for the award-winning Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.
• Illustrator Ashleigh Pugh is a descendant of Whadjuk ballardong, who has developed her own distinctive style of blending traditional wood burning technique with painting. In 2020, Ashleigh won Best Landscape for the Linden Art Gallery Postcard Prize.

Hardcover, 32 pages, published by Walker Books, 2025