Bush bash! by Sally Morgan and Ambelin Kwaymullina
Little Hare, 2012. ISBN: 9781921714771.
Recommended for ages 5+. When dingo dashes by, looking very excited,
the other animals become intrigued and question where he is headed.
As numbats, flying frogs, bilbies, crows, wombats, gliders, sea
snakes, magpies and lizards ask where he is going, he finally issues
them with an invitation to follow him. The surprise ending is
eventually revealed and we see why he has been so excited and in
such a hurry.
With a simple repetitive style of text, the focus of the reader can
easily be placed on the vibrantly coloured, stylised pictures.
Patterning is used in the background and the bush is depicted in
such a way as to make it interesting and exciting. Dingo leaves
prints in the sand which can be easily followed by the animals and
also by the reader. Although at first glance this would appear to be
just a simple counting book which uses Australian birds and animals,
it has another more important layer. The reader is also encouraged
to look closely at the illustrations to find both aboriginal
artifacts and introduced species.
In the classroom, this could provide scaffolding on which the
students could write their own stories based on Australian animals.
More importantly, it could also be used to discuss endangered and
introduced species which impact on our environment.
Jo Schenkel