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Flight by Nadia Wheatley & Armin Greder
Judges' Comments
Under the cover of darkness, a family — parents and a baby — takes flight from unseen, but imminent danger. Their destination is their ‘new home’, as the mother reassures her child. By a map of stars, they navigate their way across a vast, barren landscape. And suddenly, the unseen danger becomes the seen: bombs, flames and sinister army tanks.
Nadia Wheatley’s narrative steers us through one family’s perilous journey, with a text rich in both the suspense of external events and the warmth and reassurance between the adults and their child. The biblical parallel resonates, as does Flight’s heartbreaking depiction of this family’s escape from danger to relative safety in our modern times. Armin Greder’s illustrations are breathtakingly wrought in dark and sombre shades, with the tiniest hints of colour in the detail. The story concludes with the baby of the opening, now a young child in a refugee camp, reassuring his mother that they will one day reach their new home. This timely — and timeless — story has been thoughtfully realised by an inspired partnership of author and illustrator.