This review was published on Lost in a Good Book - https://wp.me/p3x8rS-2TW
 

This is the book for me because it highlights my own pet peeve about calling koalas koala bears. It frustrates me to no end, so I sympathise with this koala. It’s worse too because for all the people joking about it, or saying it knowing it isn’t true, there are people out there believing it. There can only be koalas. Unless there is some cross species with a drop bear that gets a koala bear sub species a koala is a koala is a koala.

But that is beside the point.

The writing makes this a great book to read aloud or to yourself, it flows wonderfully, you keep the rhythm going as the story read like a poem. Blabey gets the humour, the melody and the tone right even as his characters become exasperated and frustrated it still works perfectly.

What also makes this book great is it plays with the formatting, the font, and the size. The position of the characters and the layout of the full page illustrations all play into the reading experience. I adored the illustrations, they were cute, creative, and they told a story themselves. Koala is a great character, their frustrations and exasperation add to the delight of reading without ever become over the top. Their humour and temper work well, and being adorable in little outfits is always a bonus. There’s fun facts, there’s jokes and a little bit of history in there, but there’s also delight in watching the little koala try their best to educate and still falling short because it’s hard to escape how they look.