The Selected Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles

Bottersnikes and Gumbles

by S.A. Wakefield, Desmond Digby (Illustrator)

Launching alongside the animation television series on Channel 7, a new edition containing selected stories of these favourite Australian characters.Deep in the bush live some very strange creatures ...   Bottersnikes live in rubbish heaps along dusty roadsides in the lonely Australian bush. They have green wrinkly skin, cheese grater noses and long, pointed ears that go red when they are angry. Which is most of the time.   Giggling Gumbles live in the bush, too. They are cheerful little creatures who can be squashed into all sorts of shapes, but cannot pop back into their proper shape unless helped. This makes the friendly Gumbles useful to the lazy Bottersnikes, who have some very nasty plans ...   The Bottersnikes may have some tricks up their sleeves, but so do the resourceful Gumbles.   The battle has begun!   8+

221 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent Australian children's story (collection) though if I could find the complete adventures I'd be happier ;)

My kids (8&10) adored this as much as I did when I read it at their age. Puns and typical Aussie scenes are generously sprinkled through the book, making for an enjoyable read as a grown-up too!
Excellent bedtime tales or for the 8+ age group to read on their own.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a rather charming advocation of a continuing and important concern in Australian children’s literature. The importance of the environment and the natural habitat of the Australian bush has been fertile ground for many stories written for kids since at least ‘Dot and the Kangaroo’. However Wakefield doesn’t rely in native animals to tell his stories. The Bottersnikes and Gumbles are both apart from and invested in the modern Australian landscape,.

Wakefield’s Bottersnikes and Gumbles are characters that follow in the footsteps of May Gibbs’ Gum nut Babies and Bad Banksia Men, but within the framework of a far more anarchic fictional world. They are always in a mutual struggle; the Gumbles to play and live a free life as the Bottersnikes try to enslave them but invariably failing. The Bottersnikes are also reliant on the detritus of human society, and Wakefield is certainly not belabouring the ugliness of these characters in part because of this relationship. All up the author positions the two different types of fictional creatures into a series of comic adventures where the vivacious life spirit of the Gumbles always wins through against the beastly unpleasantness of the Bottersnikes.

This collection of stories and episodes from previously published books by Wakefield is a mostly satisfactory selection that will give those readers who are familiar with the Bottersnikes and Gumbles a smile if recognition, and hopefully charm the new unfamiliar readers. It is not as successful as one might hope for older readers, however this of course is not the prime audience of the book. Young readers, from say perhaps the age of six and up, should find plenty of enjoyment in the stories whether they read them themselves or have the book read to them. The book is admittedly a little dated and not filled with the sorts of adventures and types of characters that might enthuse younger readers today, however I am sure that more often than not children who are introduced to the Gumbles and the Bottersnikes will find some enjoyment.

It must be said that much of the appeal of the book comes from the illustrations by Desmond Digby. He has brought Wakefield’s creations to life and the book is the better for this.

In summary ‘The Selected Advertures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles’ is a funny and charming Australian children’s book, and one that will appeal to those who are familiar with Wakefield’s work and perhaps might entertain newer readers today.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have fond memories of the Gumbles jumping off trees and onto Bottersnikes’ tummies, from reading this book when I was a kid.

Now I have the pleasure of reading it to my daughter and still loving the illustrations, the frustrations of the Gumbles continually getting caught and the mean Bottersnikes treating the Gumbles poorly.

An Aussie classic.

[The Bookshop Umina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun Australian kids classics full of crazy characters living in a garbage dump.
The kids book club enjoyed this and rated in 6/7/6/9/7
They enjoyed that "the villains are stupid" and that the gumbles do "funky things with their bodies."