The Twelve Days of Christmas by June Williams illustrated by John McIntosh

 The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the 12th day

of Christmas

My true love sent to me

12 parrots prattling,

11 numbats nagging,

10 lizards leaping,

9 wombats working,

8 dingoes digging,

7 possums playing,

6 brolgas dancing,

5 kangaroos,

4 koalas cuddling,

3 kookaburras laughing,

2 pink galahs,

And an emu up a gum tree.

This version of the famous song with an Australian flavour was first published in 1992 and so is long out of print. I do like the twist that shows the emu being delivered to a  "bloke" from a helicopter. There is so much going on in the illustrations where we see the animals ganging up on the guy with his cork hat trying to force him to help the poor hapless emu.  

Here is part of the story:

"An emu in trouble is sad to see, especially one who is caught in a tree. It must have given her quite a fright to hang out from a limb - just out of sight. For everyone knows that an emu can't fly, yet there she was, stranded up high."

Take a look at this blog post where my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything talks about other versions of this poem and its history and significance. You can see some works by Perth based artist John McIntosh here.

Here are some other Australian versions to explore - I hope you can find them in a well stocked library:

Hear this one