Wild is the Wind

Cassi cradles a swift in her hands as she stands on a golden African plain. Behind her waits a hot air balloon, ready to carry her so she can follow the bird in some of its migratory journey.

Cassi follows the swifts as they navigate the draughts and folds of invisible air over the ocean. The swifts have flown through cyclones, over stormy seas tipped with white horses in the wind and over deserts, sculpted by that same wind. Their migratory path is ancient and takes them eight thousand miles from Cassi to end in Japan, where a little boy waits for them eagerly.

Following his book The Rhythm of the Rain in which he charts the journey of water, Grahame Baker-Smith this time follows a journey of the wind, and of the birds following thermal routes from one season to another. From a black-purple cyclone to a sky dominated by a cloud dinosaur, his art is breathtaking on each page, inviting children to marvel at the natural world and consider the effect that the wind has on landscapes, and the amazing fact that birds such as swifts are born knowing the migratory route their ancestors have taken for thousands of years.