Good exposure to some things Australian, so I'm saving it for the grandkids. A rather ambiguous message about indigenous vs introduced species and building on the floodplain, etc. - teaching the controversy, as they say, I suppose. ( )

Jeannie Baker's collage illustrations are beautiful as ever, magical as ever, but the story of invasive plant species is rather depressing. ( )

This book tells us a tale of environmental destruction, as a plant known as Rosy Dock it introduced to the Australian landscape around the Finke River.
Review by: Fiona

Rosy Dock is a plant innocently planted in Australia that caused huge environmental damage. ( )

A description of the Finke River area of Australia -- how hot and dry it is -- and unchanging. But how some settlers introduced a plant with beautiful red seed pods called rosy dock. An unusual rain storm occurs, causing massive flooding, after which the desert suddenly bloomed for a short period, revealing the spread of rosy dock "like a great red blanket" over the desert. Notes on the last page talk about the introduction of alien plants and their spread. ( )