Thursday Book Club - Christmas Wombat

As Christmas approaches, we thought choosing a Christmas book to review was in order.

This week we are looking at Christmas Wombat by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whatley.

Image from here

The Story

Mothball the wombat is back and it is Christmas time. She sleeps, scratches, sleeps, and gets rid of the dangly things touching her nose.

Then she smells carrots!

Only to find strange creatures (aka Reindeer) eating her carrots. She battles the strange creatures for her carrots.

She curls up in Santa's sleigh and takes an unexpected ride - visiting different countries, eating more carrots, battling more strange creatures and nearly getting stuck in a chimney.

Eventually she arrives home and begins to munch on some yummy grass - only to realise she isn't hungry.

The Author

Jackie French has published over 130 books, ranging from historical novels, general fiction, non-fiction, picture books to gardening books. She has won literary awards, both nationally and internationally and also won a children's choice award.

Jackie and her husband live in the Araluen valley in a stone house they built themselves. Their garden rambles over about 4 hectares, with 800 fruit trees, and about 270 different kinds of fruit (not counting 125 varieties of apple). Jackie has also spent three decades studying the wombats in her valley.

Our Thoughts

This book is simple and fantastically illustrated. We fell instantly in love with Mothball and her cheeky antics regarding eating the carrots left out for Santa's reindeer, presuming they were all for her.

It introduces the concept of different Christmas traditions as Mothball travels across the globe on Santa's sleigh.

When I asked Little Miss 4 what she liked about this book, she replied, "I love the wombat eating all the carrots at Christmas."


Do you have a favourite Christmas book?