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Poetry Friday: Wombat Walkabout

Warning: This book about wandering wombats on a walkabout under wattles is wondrously, well, “CUTE” was the word I was looking for but couldn’t find a w-beginning word to use in its place!  Well, thus are exposed my limits on off-the-cuff alliterating.  Nontheless, Wombat Walkabout by Carol Diggory Shields, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Dutton, 2009), is a terrifically cute and funny book about six wandering wombats named Clive, Lee, Jack, Jen, Theodore and Pru on an extended walk through the outback.  Of course, there is a somewhat threatening Dingo looming on the edges similar to the Fox of Chicken Little fame, but of course, he gets his just desserts wombat-digging style.

My daughter selected this book and enjoyed reading it aloud to me.  It’s a numbers primer using the old convention of …and then there were ‘four’ … kind of phrasing and rhyming but it was delightfully done.   Illustrator Blackall’s wombats were a whimsy of furry rotundness wearing beads and polka-dotted underwear.  Along with the wombat walkabout story, the authors have provided a glossary of Australian words for readers to get a sense of the language.   “Wombat”, “kookaburra” and  “billabong” were among my favorite words.

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Elaine at Wild Rose Reader.


Posted by: Sally | This entry was posted on Friday, September 17th, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Australia, Picture Books, Poetry Books, Poetry Friday, Reading Aloud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: , , , , ,

5 Responses to “Poetry Friday: Wombat Walkabout”

  1. Marjorie Says:
    September 17th, 2010 at 4:31 am

    It sounds really fun. I’ve always had a soft spot for wombats…

  2. jama Says:
    September 17th, 2010 at 6:07 am

    This looks adorable! I think I’m going to read it as part of my Reading the World Challenge :) .

  3. Marjorie Says:
    September 17th, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    Sounds like a good idea to me, Jama! :-)

  4. Aline Says:
    September 17th, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    I’m a fan of wombats as well. I’ll suggest this book to a first grade teacher from my daughter’s school, who will be teaching an unit on Australia this year.

  5. Corinne Robson Says:
    October 3rd, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    For all you wombat fans….. check out Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French, illustrated by Bruce Whatley. I came across this book at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and it was a hit at my house! Hysterical story accompanied by excellent illustrations. My book has 2 stickers on the cover “The Children’s Book Council of Australia Honor Book” and “Australian Booksellers Association Winner Booksellers Choice Award” so I must have gotten it at an Australian publishers booth.Not sure if it is available in North America but here is the author’s website http://www.jackiefrench.com/index.html

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