DIARY OF A WOMBAT

Fantastic

What a delightful, funny and charming diary. We follow Mothball, the wombat, through her life and times for 8 days. Mothball is so loveable, thanks to the work of Bruce Whatley, the illustrator. This big, hard, lump of an animal is portrayed in a manner that is heart-warmingly cute!I like the way Jackie French convinces me and my kids that we really are inside the mind of this iconic Australian. Mothball’s humans are truly blessed and very special at the same time.Mothball’s demanding, destructive nature is depicted in an understanding, loving way. But it is frighteningly realistic too. I would not want this to happen at my home!Now that my kids read junior novels, I thought the charm of this picture book we have owned for years would be “old news”. But recently my 9 year old won an opportunity at our local library to choose a free new book. From a vast array on offer, she chose this book’s sequel, “Diary of a BABY Wombat.” She had not read it before, and wanted to re-live the magic of the original “Diary of a Wombat”. We just cannot under-estimate the longevity of the appeal of picture books to our kids. They are treasures, as is this book.

Cuando lo recibi y lo hojee me parecio bastante aburrido y hasta dude en dejarlo bajo el árbol en Navidad, sin embargo, ha sido un exito inesperado, mi hija de 5 años muere de risa con el libro y pide leerlo una y otra vez!

Great book to teach days of the week to children.

wombatの視点から人間のことを描いたのがおもしろかったです。

Gorgeous story! Absolutely adorable illustration and lovely vocabularyMy kids fancy it a lot

I first encountered wombats when I went to the Olympics in Sydney in 2000. Fatso, the amply-posteriored Wombat was an unofficial games mascot, on Channel 7 TV every evening in the wonderful Roy and HG roundup of the days’ events. We then saw a real one at the Sydney zoo – of course, asleep and unmoving. Now, I have a very large backside, and enjoy eating and sleeping enormously – so, felt that I had finally met my totem animal. I LOVE wombats!Then, a Goodreads friend alerted me to this book – and I simply had to have it. It arrived today, and did not disappoint. The illustrations are superb, and the story (though limited in vocabulary and variety of scene) immediately grabbed both me and my husband.The diary-writing wombat’s life revolves around sleeping (lots of), eating, scratching and digging holes. Then, new neighbours appear – a human family – whom, within a short number of days, are convinced to provide the wombat with repeated gifts of carrots and oats. The book ends with:“Evening: Have decided that humans are easily trained and make quite good pets. Night: Dug new hole to be closer to them. Slept”This book is marketed to 2 -4 year old children – I would recommend it to everyone – with or without children!