Wombats in Picture Books

Image Source: Australian Wildlife Society

Illustration from The Muddle-Headed Wombat by Ruth Park illustrated by Noela Young

Illustration from Wombat by Christopher Cheng illustrated by Liz Duthie

Bruce Whatley's wombat from Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French

When you think of Australian animals which ones spring to your mind? I imagine you think of the koala, kookaburra, kangaroo, and of course the wombat. We do have heaps of other wonderful animals who may be less famous - the bilby, dingo, platypus, echidna, numbat, possum, Tasmanian Devil, and emu. Then there are these which may be less familiar - cassowary, quokka (now famous in a television advertisement), sugar glider, thorny devil, goanna, quoll, potoroo, bandicoot, eastern bettong, black spotted cuscus and common wallaroo. And then there are some I have never heard of such as the woylie, brown antechinus, and quenda.  

Quenda?  This is a type of bandicoot.  I read this name in a book this week along with the new book about wombats. And that got me thinking about picture books and Australian animals especially wombats. 

So back to wombats in picture books - they are the focus of this post. I am going to make a wild statement here and say I think if you counted all of the children's picture books about Australian animals the winner would be the wombat. Why? Are they easy to draw? Possibly. And yes they are "cute". Do we see them in our cities? No, in fact I have never seen a wombat and yet I do live in Australia but actually I have never seen a koala either. Wombats do have some quirky and interesting habits - they live in borrows, their poo is square, they are marsupials which means they give birth to their babies and have a pouch where the baby sits backwards.Then I did a quick search in Trove and I found 772 books using the key word wombat. Not all are picture books of course. 

Reading that new book about wombats this week, I thought about the ways they are depicted in illustrations. This does vary because some wombat books are non fiction, some are fiction and some a blend of both.

Here are some wombat books beginning with two that are old, famous and very different from one another:

Originally published in 1964 with illustrations by Noela Young

Read more about The Death of a Wombat

Then my own favourites:

A House for Wombats (I do wish this was still in print)

Sebastian Lives in a Hat

And here are some more books - new and old (just a small sample of the hundreds of picture books about wombats that have been published):

Read more about Wombat Divine

Read more about The Fire Wombat

I would love to see this one - illustrated by the wonderful Sophie Blackall

Fire Wombat

More information about wombats:

Womsat.org.au  Wild and wonderful wombats

National Geographic Kids - 10 facts about Wombats

Animal Facts Encyclopedia

WWF wombat quiz

Wombat Foundation - read about the critically endangered Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat