A Bellbird in a Flame Tree by Kilmeny Niland

 The Twelve Days of Christmas

This book - A Bellbird in a Flame Tree - is the first of two Christmas books that I plan to share here which give the famous poem Twelve Days of Christmas an Aussie (Australian) flavour.

My true love sent to me:

• A bellbird in a flame tree
• Two wallabies
• Three lorikeets
• Four pelicans
• Five crocodiles - how perfect is this for the song
• Six penguins peeping
• Seven mice-a-marching
• Eight quokkas cooking
• Nine numbats knitting
• Ten dingoes dancing
• Eleven lizards leaping
• Twelve koalas clowning

I love the way all of the animals are represented in a huge Christmas tree on the final page. And on the title page Kilmeny Niland has used a wombat with a gift tag as her dedication.

Sadly A Bellbird in a Flame Tree is long out of print (first published 1989) but I am sure most Australian school libraries will still have a copy.

For readers from other parts of the world here are some links to explore

• Hear a bellbird 
• See a bellbird
• See a quokka
• See a numbat
• See and hear a lorikeet

If you look closely the mice look very much like the mice in another Kilmeny Niland book - Fey Mouse.