This is a timely environmental story about the effects of drought on Australia’s wildlife. Although published in 2005, it is prescience in its forewarning of the negative effects of climate change on animals and the need for everyone to work cooperatively to search for solutions.
The Night animals and the Day animals lived in a beautiful valley where food was plentiful and beneath a large gumtree there was a cool clear waterhole for all to drink. But the spring rains hadn’t come, the weather was hot, and the waterhole was drying up. The animals meet to discuss what they could do about the water issue. Cockatoo mentioned a rain flower, a pink flower with a red stem and yellow roots, that could bring rain if pulled up and that Aboriginal Elders protected the plant in case of drought. Possum said he thought he had seen it but couldn’t remember where. The animals searched for the flower with little success.
Then by happenchance, Curlew let out a loud shriek (he stepped on a porcupine) startling Bandicoot who threw the roots he had just been digging into the air where they caught in a tree. Cockatoo was resting in a tree and felt his feathers ruffle and the branch gently sway. He looked up and saw black rain clouds gathering and, as he did, he saw the roots that Bandicoot had thrown in the air. They were yellow—it was the rain flower! Soon all the animals were dancing in the rain. It rained for two days filling the waterhole and cooling the air. Bandicoot, having found the rain flower, was given the honour of replanting it in a special place. Thereafter, it was a special plant always to be protected.
A gentle yet important story complemented perfectly by black and white and colour illustrations of Karen Briggs.
Mary Duroux is a descendant of the Yuin people of the Bega region in New South Wales. She is a poet and a former member of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council in the 1970’s. She was always fascinated by her community’s strong Cultural belief that there was a special flower that would make it rain.
Illustrator Karen Briggs is a Yorta Yorta woman whose country radiates out from the junction of the Murray and Goulburn Rivers in north-east Victoria. As an artist her work was inspired by the Barmah State Forest.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
