Nerra, Deep Time Traveller: The Winds of Waa by Tasma Walton

Title: Nerra, Deep Time Traveller: The Winds of Waa

Author: Tasma Walton

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st August 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 160

Price: $15.99

Synopsis: “Nerra, you are the next Deep Time Traveller, as your great-grandmother was before you.”
After discovering that she has the power to travel into the Dreaming, Nerra is curious when her great-grandmother’s box of artefacts opens for a second time. Inside, a feathered headband beckons Nerra. As she tries it on, she is whisked into the Dreaming to help the Creation Beings fight against the evil Devour’ena. With the help of her new friends, can Nerra rescue Bunjil the Eagle and Waa the Raven, and bring Creation back into balance? Or will the Devour’ena harness the power of the mighty winds of Waa?

~*~

It’s been several months since Nerra’s great-grandmother died, and gave her a special box filled with Indigenous artefacts that can take Nerra back in time. This time, the feathered headband has beckoned to Nerra, allowing her to open the box for a second time. Once she’s put it on, she is whisked back into the Dreaming. The Creation Beings are fighting the evil Devour’ena – and have summoned Nerra to help them. The feathers from her headband have disappeared – and she needs to get them back. To do so, she must save some special birds – Bunjil the Eagle and Waa the Raven. She must do everything she can to bring the Creation back into balance so Devour’ena can’t take the power of the winds of Waa.

Nerra’s world brings Indigenous culture to life through a fun story filled with history and culture embedded within it from the very first page. In the second Nerra novel, everything readers loved about the first one is back, and it also builds on it carefully and brilliantly. Everything in this series celebrates the beauty joy of culture, Country, and what this all means to Indigenous people – with a focus on Boonwurrung Country in this fun series. It brings a Culture and history to life that is starting to get more attention in books to create a world that Indigenous children can see themselves in. It also allows children and readers who are not part of this culture to learn about it. Books like this are brilliant about sharing the culture they represent through the story being told, because I feel that children’s books are a good way to do this. They share all cultures without judgement, they allow their characters to be part of their culture and the world their culture exists in, bringing it to life with language and elements that represent the culture. Each one does it differently, and that’s what I love about them.

I can pick up a book and learn about Indigenous culture, and their connection to Country, like with Nerra. I can do this with just about any book and learn about a culture, a religion, an identity or a country that I haven’t had a chance to experience or learn much about. This is one of those novels and series that can educate whilst entertaining, and that’s a powerful thing. Nerra’s world is vibrant as well, and full of wonder as she seeks to help ancestors and the Creation Beings in the Dreaming. This beautiful book continues the series, and each book is its own contained story as well as having an overarching story across the whole series. I am looking forward to seeing what Nerra does next.