Rudd's closing note clarifies his thematic approach ("Much of my art has been centered on fighting against the many forms of oppression and exploitation this global economic system cultivates") and provides keys to interpreting specific details within his artwork. Why do the girl's "crazy brothers" cavort atop a police car that seems out of place in this setting? And that bark "license plate" that keeps falling apart and needing replacement? It bears the letters BLM. And, as Clarke attests in her closing note, "The girl and boys in the story love their patchwork bike just as much as a kid with a brand-new, expensive BMX bike might love theirs-or maybe even more." There are small mysteries and deep shadows, figurative as well as literal, that stretch among Rudd's provocative paint-on-corrugated packing box illustrations in this Australian import. They can fly down the sandhill, glide through the house, "bumpetty bump" through the village, and delight in speed like every self-respecting kid. For a little girl narrator and her brothers, living in a "mud-for-walls" house "at the edge of the no-go desert" in an unnamed country, the bike they made from bits and bobs is their pride and joy.
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