CLOUDSPOTTING
Written by Samantha Tidy, published by Windy Hollow Books, March 2023
When the sun rises over the sea, the sky is a canvas of possibilities for a father and daughter.
Cloudspotting is a joyful celebration of love, lunch and the imagination.
Join a father and daughter as they share a special time catching crabs but also treasuring being on the water and appreciating what is around them.
There is so much to love about this book, the many layers of the little girl's relationship with her dad, the non-city setting, the intergenerational family setting, the design and illustrations which add to the gentle story of a family's recreational life. Subtle hints at the anchor points, milky tea and biscuits, the loved & unassuming family home with its ramshackle car and tinnie... It is a universal story of intergenerational family love and special moments.
- Sarah Mayor Cox
This touching and exquisitely illustrated book is propelled by the perfect text. Short and sharp, it moves quickly, allowing the brilliance of each full-page illustration to shine. I loved this story! It reflects the joys of family, time spent together, and the pleasure of being in the moment.
- Kids' Book Review
As an adult reader, this story fills me with a sense of nostalgia, a deep yearning for things lost to much of the busy modern world – time for weekend family lunches, for afternoon sleeps and cloud gazing, for precious hours of simple activity with a parent and dunking biscuits in tea. A child will, however, delight in the easy comradeship and unspoken understanding of this father and daughter, the passage from darkness to light, the dreamy worlds of cloud and sea, in watching the magic of crabs turning from blue to red when cooked – illustrated in the striking endpapers.
- Living Arts Canberra
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
I was blessed to grow up right next to the ocean. I spent a lot of time both in and on the water with my father. He taught me to bodysurf, windsurf, boogie-board, fish and go crabbing. On reflection, I now realise that this was a special time that was just for us, a joyful space between father and daughter, just as a mother and son share a special relationship. We regularly went out on weekends in our crabbing boat around the Mandurah estuary in Western Australia, dropping pots and seeing what the ocean could provide for us.