Stolen Generations analogy Found in Bruce Pascoe’s children’s tale

Is Bruce Pascoe a goodie or a ­baddie? That thought did pop into Charmaine Ledden-Lewis’s mind when she was illustrating Pascoe’s first children’s picture book, Found.

Author Bruce Pascoe at Cygnet in Tasmania. Picture: Luke Bowden

Is Bruce Pascoe a goodie or a ­baddie? That thought did pop into Charmaine Ledden-Lewis’s mind when she was illustrating Pascoe’s first children’s picture book, Found.

The story centres on a calf whose family is taken away. In one illustration, a dangerous-looking man is reflected in the calf’s eyes. Soon after, the calf thinks: “The man had stolen my mother.”

The book is based on a true story involving Pascoe and a baby bovine. “I did wonder,’’ Ledden-Lewis says, “if I had presented Bruce as a shadowy figure.”

Found, in bookstores from Aug­ust 1, is a result of the biennial Kestin Award for emerging Indigenous illustrators run by Magabala Books. The winner receives $10,000, a mentorship and the chance to illustrate a children’s book by an established writer.

“It teams a somebody with a nobody,’’ says Ledden-Lewis, who in 2019 became the second recipient. The inaugural winner in 2017, Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr, illustrated A Little Bird’s Day by Sally Morgan.

Pascoe has won awards for non-fiction works such as Dark Emu and young reader books such as Fox A Dog.

The East Gippsland-based auth­or says his first picture book started on his farm one afternoon.

“I saw a lost calf looking for its family,’’ he says. “I ended up looking after it and finding the calf a good home, and the story grew from there.”

The clear subtext, for older readers, is the Stolen Generations. When the calf’s family is taken away, not only a mother is lost but also sisters and brothers.

“I didn’t set out to write a Stolen Generations story, but once it was finished I could see the parallels,’’ Pascoe says. “If parents and teachers want to explore the Stolen Generations analogy, there is a good opportunity to start some gentle discussions.”

This is important to the NSW Blue Mountains-based illustrator, whose great grandmother was raised on the Warangesda mission in NSW and sent into domestic service. “It is something that has ripples for generations to come,’’ she says. “On every reading, I found greater depth in Bruce’s words, and marvelled at the links between a lost and lonely calf and the Stolen Generations, of which my family is a part.’’

As the title suggests, Found has a happy ending. “I like that,’’ Ledden-Lewis says. “It shows that even when something is deeply lost, there is still hope.”

Found, by Bruce Pascoe, illustrated by Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, is published on August 1 by Magabala Books.