Baby Wombat's Week by Jackie French

Ill. by Bruce Whatley. Angus and Robertson, 2009. ISBN 9780732286947.
Following in the wake of the highly successful Diary of a Wombat, comes this offering from the same duo. Full of life and fun, baby wombat sleeps through most of the day and then spends a little time looking for a new hole, as he and his mum have grown out of the old one. Baby wombat crawls into any hole he can find, hoping for a new home, but each is fraught with problems. The bin is too smelly, the garden basket too small, the hole dug in the garden meets the underground hose, causing a small flood and so on.
Younger people will love this book read out loud, following the antics of the baby creature with glee. Older student will happily read it for themselves, following the pictures and the simple layout of words easily. As a class read aloud, too, the teacher will be able to draw observations from the class as they read.
As with many stories of this ilk, the seeming simplicity underlines a wider problem, and younger readers will have no difficulty finding parallels to this story. The illustrations, as always with Bruce Whatley, are warm and endearing.The look on the bay wombat's face is enough to draw smiles form all and sundry, and this will be another of Jackie French's books that finds many homes.
Fran Knight