Words from the Wild

Illustrator and writer Hannah Gold draws from nature and ancestral wisdom.

There is something both luminous and grounding in the work of Hannah Gold, as if the rustle of leaves or the hush of dusk were being spoken in a language children can instinctively understand. Raised on a fare of picture books and wildflowers, Hannah was taught to read, write and draw by her mother in a way that was holistic rather than atomistic. By the time she could wield a crayon, she was already translating the world into shape and story.

Her books, The Owl and the Cactus and The Fuzzy Faced Flim Flum, pulse with colour and curiosity. Besides being entertaining, they initiate and invite young readers to walk barefoot into other worlds, to listen and to trust what they find there. Hannah’s illustrations, loose yet intentional, suggest an artist who understands that not everything worth knowing can be captured in outlines. Her animals wear expressions that lean towards dream, while her characters often straddle the familiar and the strange. It is this space between what is known and what is intuited that her stories so deftly explore.

Beyond her brush and pen, Hannah has trained in self-development and the wisdom and traditions of indigenous peoples. Rather than appropriating these perspectives, she treats them with the same reverence she gives to trees, rivers and moonlight. Her books do not lecture, they listen. They open a door through which she encourages a younger generation to hold their own place in the web of life with care and courage.

At a time when children’s publishing often veers toward noise or nostalgia, Hannah Gold offers something altogether rarer; a voice that trusts in the intelligence of children, and a vision shaped as much by ritual as by rain. Her work feels less like instruction and more like invitation, a hand held out in
the undergrowth.

Her books can be purchased from her shop in Mullion or online at www.browndogbooks.uk.

HANNAH GOLD
Sacred Spiral Lifestyle, Church View,
Churchtown, Mullion TR12 7HQ
hannahgold1@hotmail.co.uk
www.azimuthart.co