IBBY Australia Mini Masterpiece art auction - Meet Renee Treml

Check out the link to our IBBY Australia auction - 

you could own this sweet illustration - 14th - 28th November 2025 - act quickly 

American-born Renée Treml moved to Australia in 2007, where she was immediately captivated by the unique wildlife in this country. Drawing on her background in ecology, Renee’s began writing stories and creating illustrations that focused on animals and the environment. Renee works in her home studio in Fremantle, WA. She has written and illustrated several picture books including award-winning Once I Heard a Little Wombat, and Wombat Big, Puggle Small. She is also the creator of the hilarious graphic novels featuring Sherlock Bones and Ollie and Bea. 

Here is an interview with Kids' Book Review. Take a look at this greeting card by Renee Treml for La La Land. And I found another interview from 2009 written before she had published her first picture book!

Spread from One Very Tired Wombat

Kirkus said: ... her illustrations place beautiful pen-and-ink drawings against delicate pastel washes and capture lots of personality in her creatures. The judicious use of color and white space makes each two-page spread a work of art as well as a visual delight. Elegant, informative, engaging.

Renee sure does draw fantastic illustrations of wombats. In a previous post I talked about other illustrators who paint and draw this very appealing Australian animal.

Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery

IBBY Australia Mini Masterpiece art Auction

 

Visit the auction site to see over 40 pieces of original art

We need your support. Following the success of our inaugural 2023 fundraiser, we will once again be running Mini Masterpieces to raise funds for the Australian branch of the International Board on Books for Young People, IBBY Australia. We have invited celebrated Australian children’s book illustrators to donate post-card sized artworks for an online auction. You could OWN one of these gorgeous pieces - we have over 40 on offer. 

Ann James, Renee Treml, and Peter Carnavas

Formed in 1966, IBBY Australia is one of 82 National sections of IBBY, and each year must pay a membership fee of almost $10 000 to remain part of the international IBBY organisation.

IBBY was established following the Second World War and aims to build bridges to international understanding through children’s books. As you may be aware, IBBY Australia promotes Australian authors and illustrators by submitting their work for several IBBY administered international awards, including:

• The Hans Christian Andersen Award

• IBBY Honour Book List

• The Silent Books collection 

• The Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities list 

You can read more about IBBY and about IBBY Australia.

The Mini Masterpieces auction will run from 14 November to 28 November, with the original artworks promoted as a unique Christmas gift. Each piece will have a reserve of $75.

Nicky Johnston

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

Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery by Renee Tremel

When I saw one tiny museum item in this book – the Junonia shell from Florida I knew I would enjoy this romp. Years ago I read* Junonia byKevin Henkes and I have long wanted to find this special shell.

Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery is not a book about shells but the pages are littered with museum artifacts.

When the Royal Blue Diamond is stolen from the museum Sherlock Bones decides to investigate. Sherlock Bones is a Tawny Frogmouth (an Australian Bird). He enlists the help of Watts – an Indian Ringneck parrot. Sherlock Bones, as you may have guessed (bones is a giveaway), is a skeleton and Watts is a taxidermy specimen. Also living in the museum is, of all things, a raccoon. She is alive after being delivered to the museum by accident inside a pile of pelts for the Colonial America exhibit. 

The Royal Blue Diamond must be found or the museum will close. Sherlock Bones is desperate to solve the mystery.

You need to notice every tiny detail in this graphic novel. There are plenty of laughs and twists. This is a book that is perfect for fans of Captain Underpants, The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey, the Treehouse series by Andy Griffiths and Weirdo by Ahn Do. 

Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery will be published in April. I imagine it might the first in a series. I didn’t expect to enjoy this book but I truly did. This would be a terrific book to give to a reluctant reader - the graphic novel format, slapstick humour and feel good heroes will be sure to sweep them along through all 260 pages!

Take a look at other picture books by Renee Treml - you can see her raccoon on the cover of the book Please.  Also you might notice the cover of Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery is similar to the Australian Coat of Arms - I love this visual joke.

* I have just made a very sad discovery - Junonia by Kevin Henkes has been discarded from my former library. This is a book I loved to recommend to sensitive readers in senior classes. Decisions about weeding books cannot be based solely on frequency of borrowing.