Afloat
by Kirli Saunders; illus. by Freya Blackwood
Primary    Levine/Levine Querido    32 pp.
3/25    9781646145072    $18.99

Saunders, a member of the Gunai people, writes about weaving, water, and wisdom in this picture book first published in Australia. The spare and straightforward text describes yarning, which can refer both to fiber arts and to storytelling. “We are here to collect the vines. Here to find the rushes, to fuse the fibers…to soak and split. To roll between finger and thumb. To yarn…to knot and loop. Here to form bonds, to make ties…to unite.” Saunders’s understated prose alludes to traditional ecological knowledge passed down by women elders, to rising sea levels and cultural displacement produced by the climate crisis, and to the need to join together to effect change. Blackwood’s illustrations combine saturated details with soft-edged blending and warm, earthy tones with deep verdigris teals and sea-glass greens. Scenes of the familiar, realistic landscape (a creek flows through a concrete drain and past industrial sites, skateboarding teens, graffitied walls, and tent encampments) give way to images of the community weaving together and then to the luminous humpback whale–shaped rafts they’ve created, which “rise above” the storm—the world we live in. Blackwood uses weaving patterns (inspired by references “from all over the globe”) to especially magical effect in embellishing these whale-rafts that float into the night sky: “We are here to fly, here to shape this world together.”

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.