Cathy Freeman with Coral Vass (text) and Tannya Harricks (illustrator), The Heartbeat of the Land, Larrikin House, September 2022, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922503848
The full-page oil-paint illustrations on each page of this book, including its gorgeous endpapers, feature Australian plants and animals—and creates the beating heart of the book. The story is narrated by a young Cathy Freeman as a child who loves to run across her land chasing the wungar (the sun) high into the sky and back again at night.
The story features many words from the Kuku Yalanji language, which is the language of Cathy’s mother and grandmother on the for north Queensland coast. The story, told simply in large print across the images, depicts the stresses of rapid change in the climate, and expresses hope that care for the land, native planting, and wide awareness of climate change might help bring some balance back into the earth. The white cockatoos that follow Cathy as she runs across the land represent her personal Aboriginal spiritual totem.
This is a lovely book for any child interested in art, in running, in the issues surrounding climate change, in Aboriginal culture, and in learning something more about Cathy Freeman who is perhaps the most well-known living Aboriginal woman in Australia. Recommended for six to ten year old readers.
Reviewed by Kevin Brophy
