The Other Ark by Lynley Dodd

Here is another book you could use in your exploration of the CBCA 2020 slogan 

Curious Creatures, Wild Minds

Lynley Dodd certainly has a wild mind. These curious creatures are wonderful:

• Candy-striped camels with comical humps
• Armory dilloes
• Mad Kangaroosters in bow ties and spats
• Butternut bears with polka-dot puffles 
• Blunderbuss dragons
• Mongolian sneeth
• Alligatigers with too many teeth

• Elephant snails
• Pom-pom palavers with curlicue tails
• Marmalade mammoths
• Sabre-tooth mice

What is going on here?  Buckets of rain are falling.  There is no time to to lose. Noah fills his ark with the usual animals including the New Zealand kiwi bird. The ark is jam packed.  As he looks over the forest he sees more and more animals waiting to come on board so Noah asks Sam Jam Balu for help:

"Sam,' he said kindly,

'you've nothing to do

and I really need help 

with this two-by-two zoo.

My problems are solved

if you're quick off the mark-

you can take all the rest

in my second-best ark."

Sam Jam Balu works hard to load these assorted animals onto Ark Two but instead of floating away into the flood waters this ark is firmly stuck to the ground.

It would be fun to use the illustrations from this book for a display of curious creatures and then you could ask the children to create some of their own composite critters.

Go back and look at the title - why would there be "another ark"?  Do the children know the story of the original ark? Take a really close look at the cover - do see see animals you recognise? 

The Other Ark was published in 2004 but the paperback edition is still in print. Lynley Dodd is an author and illustrator from New Zealand. She is most famous for her Hairy Maclary books. She has written over thirty books. Here are some notes about her work written for an illustration exhibition held in 2017.