I want to love this. I do love the message about how each of us has a valuable talent. I do love the interesting animals (not cows or bunnies, thank you!) and their habitat. I love how 'the boy' is just another animal (albeit one with a wider variety of talents). I love the rhythmic patterned text.

However, though I appreciate the art, and the fact that, just as in real life, the animals are not always easy to see in amongst the scrub of the bush, it doesn't quite work for me. Everything is gold, gray, and brown, and the camouflaging effect frustrates me as I try to see what the text hints I should be seeing. The best pix for me were the b&w character sketches on the text pages, rather than the full-page color illustration paintings.

I do recommend this to anyone with young eyes, and every library that serves children ages 4-7. I don't especially rec. it to mature adults w/weak eyes who read for their own pleasure. ( )

Aussie vocab in a fun book. ( )

Mostly, it must be admitted, because the boy in it looks a lot like her bestest friend ever.

This is a simply written (if slightly long) book about a wombat whose only skill, it seems, is to dig and think. Everybody he encounters laughs at how little he can do, showing off *their* skills.

But when a fire comes and he digs and digs and digs a hole, he invites them all to share his hole, because he's been thinking and he *thinks* that they can't outrun the fire with their abilities, but he can hide them from it. (And he's right.)

The book is beautifully illustrated, and neatly written as well.

I do find that the book is too tall to easily shelve, though. ( )

Rich, shimmering art evokes the mirages of the outback perfectly and there are lots of cool antipodean critters. But the story is overly repetitious. ( )