In the big city, Wombat and Fox have many adventures. They don't go looking for trouble, but the city is a surprising place and trouble and mishaps have a way of finding them, changing the course of the day for Wombat and Fox, Croc, Bandicoot, the Hippo Sisters and the mischievous Five Monkeys. These are their stories.
The book is ideal for reading aloud and reading alone and includes three stories Wombat's Lucky Dollar GoldenCleat Fox and Hot Night in the City.
The old don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover rule. It gets me every time. Of course I judge books by their covers! I’m a children’s librarian with a particular kind of taste in titles. I know what I like and I don’t have time to read and review books that don’t look like they’re my cup of tea. How does this system work out for me? Most of the time it seems to work out just fine. If I’m passing on fabulous books then I never know it because I didn’t read them. I came half a sliver of a hair away from missing Wombat and Fox too. Oh sure, I gave the cover a little half glance but the art wasn’t my style so I didn’t think much about it. Someone had to really talk it up to me to get me interested too. Fortunately, the key to Wombat an Fox is that once you read even so much as a sentence, you are sucked in wholly and completely without a hope or a prayer of escape. So it is that I am head over heels in love with this smart and snappy little early chapter book from Australia, in spite of my continuing cover prejudice.
In three short stories we follow the misadventures of good friends Wombat and Fox. In “Wombat’s Lucky Dollar”, Wombat locates a coin on the side of the road that he is convinced will bring him luck. Unfortunately a run in with an angry ice cream vendor, a water rat, the Hippo Sisters, and others leads to nothing but trouble. Fox is convinced that the dollar is unlucky, but one wombat’s misfortune can be a bandicoot’s lucky day. In “Golden Cleat Fox”, Fox discovers that he has a miraculous inability to kick a soccer ball into its goal. When the local Five Monkeys come by and steal the ball, Fox finds a way to accomplish all his goals, both literally and figuratively. Finally in “A Hot Night in the City”, Wombat and Fox must endure an escalating series of adventures before they find a way to beat the seemingly inescapable heat of the summer.
The same person who recommended this book to me in the first place had a very good point about it that I’d like to paraphrase here. She said that there are some early chapter books out there that you read to children. They make for excellent teacher reads or bedtime stories but they’re not necessarily something a child would pick up on their own for fun. Sheep and Goat by Marleen Westra or Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins are excellent examples of this kind of book. Then there are stories like this one. Talk about readability. I could engage in long convoluted sentences to convince you as to why this book is so charming or I could merely reprint the book’s first eight sentences instead. And since the first eight sentences were what convinced me to keep reading in the first place, it seems only fair to show them to you now:
“This is a story of what happened to Wombat on Tuesday. I could tell you about Monday, but nothing happened on Monday. So Tuesday it is. Wombat’s phone was nearly out of minutes so he went to the mobile phone shop. He had never needed to get minutes before. He had no one much to phone. Except Fox. Only Fox always had his phone turned off to save the battery.”
Part of the appeal here is that we are dealing with a story that feels as if it could be timeless, yet it contains some awfully contemporary ideas. It’s a feeling not too dissimilar to the one I had when I read Paddington Here and Now by Michael Bond and watched the bear from darkest Peru travel in the London Eye. Sometimes a children’s book will sabotage its timelessness by mentioning the hottest video games or coolest pop singers. That’s bad. But like the Paddington book, Wombat and Fox contains modern references that do not date the book. Wombat has to buy cell phone minutes? That’s almost quaint. And later, the water in a public fountain has been turned off because, “It had been a long hot summer, with water restrictions.” Again it’s a pretty contemporary note, but it works within the context of the narrative. So as it stands, this book is pretty darn timeless already.
Back to the writing; Denton has an almost off-hand style that suits the format particularly well. Breaking up his sentences with small pen-and-ink illustrations everywhere, one early section describes Wombat seeing something shining in the sunlight, “On the sidewalk, to his left. Your right. His left.” And indeed the image accompanying these words shows Wombat facing the viewer with the coin on his left, your right. That is, until the next illustration switches the view so that you are behind him (clarifying how one person’s right can be another person’s left). It’s small. It’s understated. It fits.
Wombats are so perfectly situated to become the next big children’s literary phenomenon (ousting the penguins from their chilly throne) that it’s amazing to me that there aren’t more wombat books out there. There is, of course, Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French and Don’t Pat the Wombat by Elizabeth Honey (which is a very funny, too little read book here in the States) but I’m fairly certain that average American joe schmoe/jill schmill isn’t going to be able to tell you much about the furry little critters. At least Wombat and Fox gives you a couple facts to go on. Wombats clearly have a difficult time driving cars. They like to keep cool in the summer and they have problems with money matters in general. I don’t think anyone is going to contest any of those points, so Terry Denton is on the ball as far as that goes. Foxes are a different matter entirely, and as this one is prone to wearing a mask and superhero cape I don’t know how much we can trust him. Plus you have to feel a little bad for Croc who appears on the cover and in every story of this book alongside our two heroes but did not manage to get her name into the title. That’s gotta hurt!
I mentioned before that Denton’s artistic style, at least on the cover, was not my cup of tea. But his pictures grew on me. Inside the book the small details and brief two-page panoramas act as succinct little complements to every scene. Some kids who are reading early chapter books have the words down, sure, but they still need some pictures to help them along. In fact I get a lot of parents at my reference desk with children who will only read Captain Underpants. What can I recommend as the next step? I can recommend Wombat and Fox, a book with enough action and slapstick to amuse the Underpants fan but that also knows how to use a good plethora of pictures.
I don’t expect Wombat and Fox hysteria to sweep the nation but I have dreams for this little book. I imagine it getting a small underground fan base. I imagine people thirty years from now reminiscing over reading it as small children, seeking it out at their local libraries. I imagine small Wombat and Fox online societies and maybe even Terry Denton’s papers in a nice university collection. But even if only some of that happens, I can at least rest assured that no matter who I hand this book to, they will be instantly charmed. You cannot read this collection of three stories and dislike it. And how many books, honestly, can you say that about?
I read this a few days ago and showed it to Betsy so I'm delighted she liked it as much as I did. Can't wait to see her review.
It is a total charmer of a chapter book from Australia. Heavily illustrated so it all goes down easily and delightfully. Yes, you could read it aloud, but I see it even better as a fun book that emerging readers could enjoy on their own --- over and over and over.
Vol platte cartooneske humor (zware dingen op je hoofd, uitglijden op een trap, een duik nemen in een leeg zwembad). Precies waar kindjes van 7 van houden dus prima boek. En natuurlijk grappig geïllustreerd.
Leuke avonturen van de Wombat en de Vos en hun andere dierenvriendjes. Tot nu toe niet zo bombastisch als Terry' s andere serie De waanzinnige boomhut....wel leuk.
I think this is a really good book. And I would also like to say I like how the monkeys are always in the way and fox cannot drive a car and it's sort of funny a little bit.
Krokodillen met limousines, vogels met mobieltjes in hun nest - chaos! Je moet ervan gecharmeerd zijn, maar leuk voor beginnende lezers die van malligheid houden doorspekt met plaatjes!
This fun junior fiction for new readers has some funny scenarios and likeable characters. Lots of line drawings break up the text blocks. Funny and fun!
This book includes three short stories about wombat and fox. The stories are okay, but they don't always make a whole lot of sense and they seem to drag on. It took us several weeks to finish the book because it was never a bit hit - we usually only read a few pages at a time before putting it down again. It was due to the library today, though, so we pushed on and finished it. The characters do some funny (and dangerous!) things, but otherwise are not very interesting. Perhaps this would be better to listen to (with someone talented reading it with different voices - I wasn't up to it.) I am not sure if we'll try any of the other books in this series,but considering some of the glowing reviews here, perhaps we'll give it another chance.
I listened to this one in the car, as my daughter loves to hear stories being read by others, ever since she found Audio Stories in the library.
Am I glad I didn't have to read this one, because I don't think I would have finished it. Three ridiculous tales about Wombat and Fox. Some made no sense, while others tried hard to be humourous. Even my daughter was left questioning things and I could say nothing that she felt was a satisfactory response, so we agreed to disagree.
I have never been a fan of Terry Denton's books, but I thought I would give this one a try for my daughter's sake (I must admit I tried to steer her away from it, but she held strong and borrowed it anyway). Wombat and Fox: Tales of the City did nothing to make me change my mind.
My daughter and I laughed and laughed the whole way through the audio book (props to Don Bridges for his narration) The hippo sisters on their bicyle going round and round the roundabout, the Wiley fox trying to swindle an ice cream from the ice cream man, with the unlikely but very likeable duo of wombat and fox at the heart of all the adventures, This is like a pared down, hilarious Aussie version of Wind in the Willows.
How you feel about this book entirely depends upon the mood you are in when reading it. Feeling a little goofy? This would be the time to tackle it. In fact, "goofy" might just be the best one-word description of Wombat and Fox. Completely goofy. Which translates into, "Kids will think this is hysterical."
Still, my favorite line remains, "Stupid Bandicoot."
Wombat and Fox don't go looking for trouble, but trouble and mishaps seem to have a way of finding them.The city can be a surprising place. Seemingly unimportant, ordinary goings-on can easily change the course of a day for Wombat and Fox, Croc, Bandicoot, the Hippo Sisters and the mischievous Five Monkeys.These are their stories.