The Patchwork Bike

It has a bent bucket seat, bashed tin-can handlebars, and wood-cut wheels — and riding the patchwork bike that you and your crazy brothers made is the best fun in the whole village.

When you live in a village at the edge of the no-go desert, you need to make your own fun. That's when you and your brothers get inventive and build a bike from scratch, using everyday items like an old milk pot (maybe Mum is still using it, maybe not) and a used flour sack. You can even make a license plate from bark if you want. The end result is a spectacular bike, perfect for whooping and laughing as you bumpetty bump over sand hills, past your fed-up mum and right through your mud-for-walls home. A joyous story by multi-award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke, beautifully illustrated by street artist Van Thanh Rudd.

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer and slam poet champion of Afro-Caribbean descent. In 2015, she was named one of Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists of the year. She lives in Australia.

Van Thanh Rudd is an Australian street artist and activist who studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, RMIT University, and Griffith University. The Patchwork Bike is his first picture book. He lives in Melbourne with his family.