A small green swamp just past the edge of town is home to two wild blue-billed ducks, a place where "tall reeds rustled around its edge, hiding croaking frogs and clouds of buzzing insects, while swallows flitted restlessly over the clear water".
But one day huge, rumbling, grumbling machines crawls, scraping and gouging, towards the swamp, and out pours the swamp's precious water.
'Refugees' tells the story of the ducks' misadventures in trying to find a new place to live, via the seaside, a fairground where they shelter overnight in the shooting gallery, and a busy river where they are nearly towed out to sea in the boat where they have slept. At last they find another swamp, but it is one where duck shooters are about. Hiding in the reeds by the gun dogs, the pair are discovered by a wildlife rescue officer and taken to their new home - a lake "where tall reeds rustled, frogs, croaked, clouds of insects buzzed and swallows flitted restlessly over the clear water".
The illustrations are David Miller's trademark - beautiful, intricate paper sculptures.
