With love from Down Under

This saturday evening I took A down under to play. Since the next day was a holiday, she could spend that extra bit of time with her friends unlike during the school week. I took my book with me as usual, and spent a happy 2 hours catching up with my reading at my usual place.

So what's new? Why this post? Well, when we came back, there was a large parcel waiting for us. A large, brown paper package that looked as if it contained...A BOOK! I looked at the postage stamp- from Australia! With the words fishpond.com.au written all over it.

Wow! I had been waiting for this parcel for some time now, since I received a mail from Catherine Way, who blogs about the adventures she has with her two boys at her home on a "5-acre block of land" in Australia. We had been assigned to be partners by Zoe at Playing by the book to swap picture books.

A quickly made short work of opening the parcel and WOW! Out came a book I had earlier read about, but not got my hands on. A piece of Australia, about an animal native to that continent. It was read by A with a lot of giggles.

Pic Courtesy jackiefrench.com

DIARY OF A WOMBAT

Written by Jackie French

Illustrated by Bruce Whatley

Published by Angus & Robertson, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Ages 4+

Mothball is a wombat. A very busy wombat. After all, she has to sleep, eat, scratch, eat grass, and most importantly-train the humans she lives with to provide enough carrots for her to crunch. For grass all the time is soooo boring! So what if there is a door which stops her from entering the house in search of carrots? The only way is to chew a hole in the door to get in!

And how tiresome that the humans board up the hole! Now what does a wombat do? Well, Mothball just proceeds to battle with everything possible till she gets her carrots. The doormat "(Discovered flat, hairy creature invading my territory. Fought major battle with flat, hairy creature.)", the dustbin, ransacking shopping bags, Until she discovers that a whole lot of lovely, sweet, crunchy carrots can be got by digging them up from the garden. Gorged on until she gets bored of them, too.

So now what? Now mothball feels like rolled oats. And proceeds to train her humans to give her rolled oats. And carrots too!

Inference by a wombat? "Have decided that humans are easily trained and made quite good pets."

A lovely picture book, that was much enjoyed by the 9 yr old. Read and re-read over the past few days. We searched and found the real story of Mothball, the story behind Diary of a Wombat. As endearing as the book. We learned a lot about this very endearing animal native to Australia along the way.

There was a lot of laughter as A and I drew parallels between the way Mothball apparently trains her humans and the way children apparently train their parents to heed all their needs, all the while that parents feel that they are training their children in something that the child needs to learn. It is, after all, a two-way street, isn't it?

The book is winner of the Booksellers' Choice Award, and a Children's Book Council of Australia Honour Book. We have been indeed honoured to receive such a wonderful book. Thanks, Catherine!

And the book that we have sent to Catherine and her two boys? Well, I won't give it away, as I don't want to spoil the surprise for them. All I will say here is that it is a piece of India, my country, that we have sent them, and something that I am sure her boys will enjoy!