Yildaan: Our Dreaming Track by Uncle Bud Marshall and Yandaarra, illustrated by Hannah Smith and Elaine Carmady

Title: Yildaan: Our Dreaming Track

Author: Uncle Bud Marshall and Yandaarra, illustrated by Hannah Smith and Elaine Carmady

Genre: Non-fiction

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 29^th April 2025

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 48

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: Featuring art and photographs from Nambucca Heads in the beautiful Gumbaynggirr Country, this stunning picture book tells stories of Gumbaynggirr people, their living culture and connection to Country, from the award-winning team who created The Dunggiirr Brothers and the Caring Song of the Whale.

Giinagay, welcome, I’m Uncle Bud. I’m a Gumbaynggirr man, an Aboriginal Elder from Nambucca Heads. This is my Country.
I want to tell you about this place and about my Elders. I want everyone who comes here to know where they are.
I want them to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and be part of Yildaan, our Dreaming track.

In Yildaan, Uncle Bud’s story of being on Country mingles with ancestor’s stories and shows how these two parts of life are inherently connected. Using a mix of Gumbaynggirr and English language, and combining photography and illustration, Yildaan includes artwork from Aunty Shaa’s nieces and Uncle Bud’s great nieces, Hannah Smith and Elaine Carmady, as well as a special story from Aunty Shaa who holds stories from the region.

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Come along the Dreaming Track to find out more about what it is and what it means in Nambucca Heads, Gumbaynggirr Country. In this new picture book, filled with art and photographs from the area, Uncle Bud Marshall tells the stories of the people and culture and how they are connected to Country. Their culture lives in the stories and land, and this book brings it to life for everyone to share and understand. For people to learn about in an easy and accessible way. To embrace the many different ways of living there are in Australia today.

What Uncle Bud does and wants this book to do is to tell people about his family, his history, his culture and his people. What the land means to them and how they interact with it, and have interacted with it for thousands of years. This book is open about what the land meant to Uncle Bud’s ancestors and what it means to his people and family now. It is open about how the land is part of them and is open about what it wants everyone who reads this book to learn. Being open about knowledge and culture helps shape our understanding of the knowledge that has been around for a long time, but that has in many ways been hidden, been kept from people for many reasons.

Being able to learn about these histories and cultures is important to understand Australia as a whole, because everyone who has ever lived here has contributed to the country and culture over its 60,000-year history. Books like this can reveal all sorts of things to everyone, to help us connect with the country and its people. And it also helps those of us who never had the chance to learn some of this really cool stuff at school fill in those gaps. Fill in the overall, general overview with specifics that bring Country and culture to life.

Yildaan is another important book to help expand our knowledge about Indigenous Australians, their history and their culture, because it is so intertwined with everything else. Bringing all our history together shows where we have come from, and what things mean to people. How the world interacts and how lives are intertwined. It reminds us that there is power in culture and stories and being open to understanding the many layers of a nation’s story. I have been really enjoying books like this that are working to share knowledge and fill in gaps that many people have. I think learning about specific things, specific Country, cultures, stories, or languages makes our understanding richer, compared to the generic terms used when I was at school. It answers many questions that I have had – and I think sharing the knowledge that can be shared makes our overall history of Australia richer. Another fantastic book to expand our diverse reading and learning.