TA-DA, KOALA!

Entertaining oneself is good, but finding a new friend (and a lost boomerang) is even better.

In this series entry, Kangaroo is bored, but she quickly finds inspiration in a cloud and digs her boomerang from her cluttered pouch. When Boomerang fails to return and she has to wait, she distracts herself with shadow-boxing and then with making a kangaroo-shaped “sand queen.” Hopping into the forest to search, Kangaroo bumps into a tree, then introduces herself to the creature she’s knocked loose. Kangaroo would like to play, but koalas “sleep by day.” She gives him a ride in her pouch, but Koala gets motion sick, and they quickly return to his tree. Though Koala wants to nap, Kangaroo notices that his “two pairs of toes” (koalas have five front toes) would be great at boomerang-flinging, and Koala, realizing that the missing boomerang is in his tree, retrieves it. Sleeping forgotten, they become friends, and he asks Kangaroo to teach him to throw it. Of the three discussion questions that follow, one asks about story comprehension; the other two ask readers to connect with similar experiences they might have had. The four-beat lines rhyme, but uneven line-lengths, varying from eight to 13 or 15 syllables, can make for rough reading aloud. Cartoonish grayscale illustrations are not cute or cuddly, but they do show the action. Discussion questions at the end of the book offer a jumping-off point for conversations about playtime and differences.

Different preferences don’t impede inter-species friendship here.