‘Is now the right time?’ and ‘I’m not ready yet’ are evergreen themes in picture books for the very young. Author and artist Ambelin Kwaymullina gives these ideas a fresh look in 'Caterpillar and Butterfly'. Declining invitations from friends Wallaby, Goanna, Snake to leave her home and experience Waterhole, Tree and Sunset, Caterpillar would rather hide herself away. But cocooned in isolation, loneliness strikes until Caterpillar longs to escape and a remarkable thing happens. Caterpillar becomes Butterfly and she roams the world. She learns that ‘when we hide from the danger of the world we also hide from the wonder of it’. The book’s message of being open to challenges and transformations and an appreciation of the natural world is artfully expressed in the vivid, flowing lines of colour and the precise, rhythmic language.
Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Indigenous writer and artist. She comes from the Bailgu and Njamal peoples of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
