Celebrating Wombats in Children’s Books
October 22 is Wombat Day in Australia and since moving here, I have become quite smitten with the little rascals. They are such cute, chunky, lazy little things. I probably like them because they remind me of my Pugs who are cute, chunky and lazy as well. 🙂
Really the inspiration for this post came from the book, One Very Tired Wombat, by Renee Treml which I found in our local independent bookstore. I was already partial to wombat stories and finding this book was like finding a hidden treasure!!
1 very tired wombat settles down to sleep.
The morning is calm and silent:
wombat doesn’t hear a peep
You can just imagine what happens next when 2 curious curlews, 3 furtive frogmouths, 4 peaceful pigeons etc start to gather around the tired wombat disturbing his much needed sleep. He has, after all, been up all night foraging for food! As you read the story you can feel just how tired the wombat is and how frustrated he becomes by all the different creatures who “visit.” The story is told in delightful rhymes with wonderfully rich vocabulary such as “furtive,” “garish” and “cackling” which also makes this book a great teaching tool.
Carol Diggory Shields
Early one morning when the sun came out,
Six woolly wombats went walkabout.
They didn’t see the dingo with the hungry eye.
“I’ve a hunch my lunch just walked on by.”
This book was one of our first introductions to Australian animals and words. The book features the infamous wombat, kookaburra and dingo; introduces the reader to the wattle tree, the billabong and gum nuts; and teaches us what a swag bag, a walkabout and a bloke are. The story itself is a counting (backwards) book about a dingo who snatches up wombats for his dinner as they go on their daily walk. Once the last two wombats realize the others are missing, they quickly create a trap for the dingo and prepare to rescue their mates.
Jackie French
Monday
Morning: Slept.
Afternoon: Slept.
Evening: Ate grass.
Scratched.
Night: Ate grass.
Slept.
Man, this does sound just like my Pugs- right down to the scratching part!! This is how the day of a wombat goes until new neighbors move in. Human neighbors that is. This little wombat manages to burrow his way into every part of his new neighbors lives- he eats their carrots, digs in their garden and even builds a new burrow beneath their home just “to be closer to them.”
Click here for the story behind the story of Diary of a Wombat
Other titles also available include:
Thelma Catterwell
Sebastian lives in a hat.
It is a brown woollen hat.
Sebastian’s a pink, fuzzy wombat….
Sebastian hasn’t always lived in a hat.
He used to live in a warm dark place.
It was his mother’s pouch.
This is a different sort of wombat story. This story tells of Sebastian, a baby wombat, who was rescued after his mother was hit by a car. It tells of what the rescuers do to care for the baby wombat so it can be released back into the wild. And while being cared for Sebastian stays warm and cozy in a hat.
Marcia K.Vaughan
In this story, Dingo has plans to cook up some wombat stew. Thankfully, Wombat’s mates have other plans. They trick Dingo into adding all sorts of unappetizing ingredients such as mud, feathers, flies and gum nuts to his stew before adding Wombat. The result? A terrible stew and one wombat saved from becoming Dingo’s dinner.
Make your own Wombat Stew from Adventures at Home with Mum
Do you have any favorite wombat stories? Please share!
Our Wombat Wish List:
Here a few wombat books that we have been on the look out for:
- How to Scratch a Wombat by Jackie French
- The Secret World of Wombats by Jackie French
- A Wombat’s World by Caroline Arnold
Want Some More Wombat Fun?
- Read an interview with Grumpy the Wombat from Riley and the Grumpy Wombat (Tania McCartney) thanks to My Little Bookcase
- Get some wombat clothing to spice up your wardrobe.
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That’s a great Wombat Day cake you made. Would you mind if I put it up on my website, with a link and credit, of course.
We just checked out Wombat Christmas — never too early for a Christmas book!
Diary of a Wombat is a favourite here – my 3.5yo knows it by heart. 🙂
Wombat Devine is also a lovely Christmas themed story. Wombat tries out for all the parts in the nativity play but someone else gets picked everytime until they find the perfect part for him (but I’m not going to give away the ending!).
I read Wombat Divine a long time ago, but didn’t add it to my list for some reason! What did you think of Wombat’s Christmas?
OK, I’m going to have to order all those books! My niece once lost her sunglasses by leaning over to far to see the Wombats at the zoo. She called them “swimbats” forever, then it morphed to “swombats”. She still thinks one day we will go visit them and one of them will be wearing her sunglasses 🙂
Love, love, love obviously. Such a great lot of books too! Happy Wombat Day! You know I just had to share this!
I love wombats too- there is something very unique about them- but didn’t even know it was Wombat Day.
You’ve put together a wonderful list of books and ideas here.
Loving wombats means we’ve done a few fun wombat things at My Little Bookcase:
-We made Wombat lamingtons in 2010 and added a Christmas Hat to them last year (inspired by Christmas wombat- Jackie French)
-We also have a wombat cookie cutter. I made a huge batch to help launch Tania McCartney’s Melbourne book launch. (I think I’ve got a photo on my facebook page somewhere)